Will Smith defeated a science fiction author’s lawsuit alleging the actor’s 2019 box office bomb Gemini Man was a rip off of his work, In Touch can exclusively report.
According to court documents obtained by In Touch, on January 31, a federal judge dismissed all claims against Will, 56, in the case brought by Kissinger Sibanda.
The judge did not dismiss the entire lawsuit and Kissinger will proceed with his remaining claims against other defendants.
As In Touch first reported, back in August 2024, Kissinger filed a $1.7 million lawsuit against Will, Skydance Productions, Gemini Pictures, Paramount Pictures, David Ellison and various other companies over the film Gemini Man.
In his suit, Kissinger clamed Gemini Man ripped off his science fiction novel titled The Return to Gibraltar, which he released in 2011.
Kissinger explained, “The book details an African American who is cloned and used in a time traveling program without his permission.”
The science fiction author pointed out that the film Gemini Man had been stuck in development since 1997. The script was originally written in 1997, and other actors were attached to Will’s role over time.
In court, Kissinger claimed he shared a copy of his book with Will’s stunt double in 2012.
“[Kissinger] does not recall the actual name of the stunt double … The stunt double had recently returned from Cape Town, South Africa, and limited discovery can produce the name given that defendants have all the names of Will Smith’s stunt doubles on file,” his suit claimed.
In addition, the author claimed he sent copies of his book to the biggest talent agent in Hollywood.
His lawsuit read, “The defendants struggled to make the movie until [he] released his book in 2011, thereafter they changed the film’s marketing strategy – taking themes, plots, characterizations, context and cultural subtexts from the book to create their movie, Gemini Man.”
He said, “The publication of The Return to Gibraltar, provided a fee meal for the defendants; not only did the book detail the cultural importance of the protagonist as a black person in a cinematic form but it explained cloning and its science in the context of a complete story; not just ‘ideas and facts’ but a complete narrative pace and climax.”
His lawsuit continued, “In addition to the literary tool of deception in a cloned army used against the protagonist. Interesting enough, the protagonist in The Return to Gibraltar is a Harvard man, similarly to the younger version of the Will Smith cloned in Gemini Man.”
The author said he sent a legal letter to the defendants in 2020 but said they never responded or offered him any sort of financial payout.
In court documents obtained by In Touch, Will, along with David Ellison and the various production companies and studio defendants, responded to the lawsuit in November 2024.
They claimed Kissinger had filed a similar lawsuit over the same claims that had already been dismissed for multiple reasons, and could not bring the same claims in a different case. Will was not a defendant in the previous lawsuit.
In the previous case, in ruling on Skydance’s motion to dismiss, “the Court dismissed [Kissinger’s] entire action due to [Kissinger’s] failure to register his copyright prior to initiating the action.”
“A week after the Court issued its ruling dismissing [Kissinger’s] case, [Kissinger] filed his new complaint, which included the civil conspiracy and unjust enrichment claims that he was expressly told were futile due to their legal and factual deficiencies,” the response alleged.
Last month, Will came out victorious when he was dismissed from the matter completely.
Gemini Man had a reported budget of $138 million before marketing but only brought in $173 million worldwide.
