According to reports, a lawyer for Brazil's Catholic Church has gone public with a dispute over the destruction of Rio de Janeiro's famous 'Christ the Redeemer' statue destroyed by CG effects in director Roland Emmerich's Vancouver-lensed action drama "2012". Archdiocese attorney Claudine Dutra said that Columbia didn't get a proper copyright license to depict the statue, created in 1931 by French artist Paul Landowski on commission from the Rio archdiocese. Landowski died in 1961, and the archdiocese says it holds the copyright on the statue until 2032.
Apparently the church turned down Columbia's initial request to show the Redeemer being toppled by a giant wave.
But according to the studio, Columbia did get permission.
"Acting on a good faith belief that the estate of the sculptor of the statue held the copyright, we sought and received their permission to use the image in the movie", said Columbia. "We are currently in discussions with the archdiocese in hopes of reaching an agreement in this matter."
The church says it is still trying to figure out its damages, depending on an expert's evaluation.
"We want Columbia Pictures to publicly declare that it did not intend to cause offense".
The PG-13 rated "2012", released by Sony/Columbia November 13, 2009, was budgeted at $200 million, earning $166,112,167 domestic and $603,541,428 foreign, for a worldwide theatrical total of $769,653,595.
Click the poster to enlarge and Sneak Peek "2012"...
