British screenwriter Jake Mandeville-Anthony filed an injunction in a US District Court to stop the scheduled June 24 release of “Cars 2” on grounds that Disney Pixar copied it from an earlier work he submitted sometime in the 1990s.

The complaint states that Mandeville wrote a three-part screenplay entitled “Cookie & Co.,” which is based on the real life adventures of race-car driver Michael Owen Perkins, who won a race in 1988. He also submitted a second work “Cars,” which includes a treatment, sample screenplay 46 animated car character descriptions, 10 sketches of car characters and a marketing and merchandising plan.

According to Mandeville, he sent copies of his works to different production outfits, including Disney, and personally met Jim Morris, a Lucas Film executive, in 1993 and personally delivered his works.

When Pixar bought certain divisions of Lucas Films in the 1980s, the two production outfits had been in constant communication with each other. In 2005, Morris joined Pixar where he is now serving as General Manager.

This is not the first time that Mandeville has filed a lawsuit against Disney-Pixar. Previously, the parties have been involved in a semi-private dispute in the United Kingdom, with a recent judgment already sealed.

In this lawsuit, Mandeville complained about a wide range of similarities among the characters in the two works. The first is that of “Stanley” who was patterned after a Model T Ford. The lead character in each of the works is modeled after a James Aston-Martin sports car. In addition, there were also characters modeled after broken down trucks, among others.

Mandeville sued Disney Pixar for copyright infringement and breach of implied contract. Aside from an injunction, Mandeville also wants actual or statutory damages.

Released in 2006, Disney Pixar’s Cars raked in more than $450 million and has generated a merchandising conglomerate for Disney. Pixar did not immediately make a comment on the lawsuit.

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