The film’s production company, Alcon Entertainment, has sued Tesla, Elon Musk, and Warner Bros. Discovery for allegedly utilizing Blade Runner 2049 images without permission at the business’s highly publicized robotaxi launch event. The dispute revolves around the event, which took place at Warner Bros. Studios on October 10.
The lawsuit claims that Alcon specifically turned down Warner Bros.’ request to use content from the 2017 science fiction film for the occasion. Alcon claims that in spite of this denial, Warner Bros. and Tesla went ahead and created advertising images based on the movie using artificial intelligence without authorization. The lawsuit alleges that there has been substantial financial harm as a result of this misappropriation.
Additionally, Alcon charges Tesla with “false endorsement,” saying that the occasion suggested an unapproved alliance between Tesla’s robotaxi and the Blade Runner brand. This charge was made because Blade Runner 2049 was distributed by Warner Bros. in addition to hosting the launch. Starring Ryan Gosling, Harrison Ford, and Ana de Armas, the film was a follow-up to the 1982 cyberpunk masterpiece and took home two Academy Awards.
Elon Musk has openly shown his appreciation for Blade Runner, even going so far as to say that the original movie served as the model for Tesla’s Cybertruck. Alcon is now working on Blade Runner 2099, a spinoff television series.
In a different case, I, Robot filmmaker Alex Proyas accused Musk of stealing ideas for Tesla’s self-driving cars and humanoid robotics from his 2004 film. Proyas’s assertion was reinforced by the title of Tesla’s robotaxi event, We, Robot, which was a reference to Isaac Asimov’s writings. He posted this information in a social media post that received a lot of views.
