Tyler Perry Sued Over "Temptation"

Tyler Perry is being sued by an Indiana man who says that he was the first person to ever write a story about a woman cheating on her husband.

Alright, so it’s a bit more complicated than all that, but you get the general idea. Writer William James of Gary, Indiana, filed a lawsuit against Perry in U.S. District Court in Indiana on Wednesday, which claims that Perry’s 2013 film Temptation: Confessions of a Marriage Counselor is a complete rip-off of his 2009 screenplay Lovers Kill.

According to the lawsuit, James’ script and Perry’s film involve a marriage that is ruined after the wife has an affair. Hardly a unique concept, hence our mild disdain in the heading.

Additionally, though I’m loathe to defend Perry’s Temptation, it’s actually based on a 2008 stage play called The Marriage Counselor written by Perry himself, so the suit is pretty groundless based on the timing alone.

But still James says that he passed a copy of his script through the right channels hoping that somewhere down the line it would get to Perry’s desk. It’s unclear whether or not it ever did.

In any case, James is seeking unspecified damages that include an edit to Temptation’s opening and closing credits. If he wins, it will read ”Based on the Novel ‘Lovers Kill’ by William James.” Ouch.

It’s doubtful that James will win his lawsuit, but even if he does, it’s not like Temptation has been the runaway success train he’d want to hitch his cart to anyway. It hasn’t done very well with critics, but with $49 million at the box office, it has been a modest financial success.




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