‘What Men Want’ makers land in legal soup

Los Angeles, Sep 26 (IANS) The makers of "What Men Want" have been sued by a screenwriter, who claims he is being ripped off.

The film is a gender-swapped remake of Mel Gibson's "What Women Want", with Taraji P. Henson leading the cast.

A screenwriter named Joe Carlini has claimed that the Henson-starrer is a rip-off of his story, according to "TMZ".

Carlini is suing several creative heads associated with "What Men Want", including Paramount Pictures, producer Will Packer and several of the film's screenwriters for copyright infringement. He has claimed he wrote a script called "What the F Is He Thinking?" in 2015 and went to many Hollywood production companies such as The Weinstein Company, Montage Films and Bloom, and stars such as James Franco, Chris Pratt, Nick Swardson and King Bach but no one signed on.

"The Blast" has excerpts from the lawsuit that claims the last meeting Carlini had for the project was in 2017 with a representative from Bloom, where he presented the screenplay for "What The F Is He Thinking?" and a business plan.

His lawsuit also claims that when Paramount announced "What Men Want" in 2017, there was no script in place but the studio was 'fast-tracking' the film for release in early 2019.

Carlini has alleged that there are many similarities between the main characters in both stories. They realise they wish they understood men better, and they both gain the ability to hear men's thoughts in the same way. They both end up falling and hitting their heads after a night of partying, when they both wake up in the hospital and learn they can hear men's thoughts.

Both characters reportedly lose their power to hear men's thoughts in the same way.

Carlini is seeking unspecified damages plus all of the profits from the film in his lawsuit.