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The stars of 1968’s “Romeo & Juliet,” Olivia Hussey and Leonard Whiting, have filed a new lawsuit towards Paramount Pictures and the Criterion Collection over the house launch of the movie.
The new submitting seeks “preliminary and permanent injunction that the Digital Release not be distributed with the Digital Photos included.”
The “Digital Photos” refer to photographs taken in the course of the filming of “Romeo & Juliet” by director Franco Zeffirelli that featured each actors nude whereas underage which can be included within the 2023 launch “had been digitally enhanced such that, unlike the Original Work, the Digital Release depicted their private areas in such high detail that the gratuitous display was lewd and lascivious and demeaning to them.”
The actors are in search of “damages in a sum according to proof that is adequate to compensate Hussey and Whiting for the general injuries suffered as hereinabove alleged,” together with “emotional distress, embarrassment, humiliation, and mental anguish.”
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Leonard Whiting and Olivia Hussey, the stars of the 1968 Franco Zeffirelli directed “Romeo & Juliet” have filed a new lawsuit in search of the cease of distribution of what they declare are digitally enhanced photos that show nudity that was photographed whereas each have been underage. (Photo credit score ought to learn CHRIS DELMAS/AFP by way of Getty Images)
For each Hussey and Whiting, the swimsuit alleges that nothing within the settlement allowed for Paramount, working underneath the title B.H.E. Productions Ltd., to “recreate, republish, or redistribute photographs of her performance in the [‘Romeo & Juliet’] in any other medium or format than 35 mm analogue cinematographic photographs.”
William Romaine and Zishan Lokhandwala of Romaine and Lokhandwala Law Group, the attorneys representing Hussey and Whiting, spoke with Fox News Digital by way of cellphone relating to the case.
“On December 30 2023, our office did send Paramount’s counsel a letter that notified them among other things that they needed to cease and desist, remove the images that have been depicted in the 2023 digital film, which they never had consent to. And by the way, we received a rebuff letter from Paramount’s counsel that they would not be removing the images from the film on January 19, 2024,” Lokhandwala mentioned.
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According to attorneys for Whiting and Hussey, they despatched a stop and desist letter to Paramount demanding the studio to take away the objectionable photos in December 2023. (Bettman)
Romaine additional defined that the present submitting is separate from Hussey and Whiting’s earlier lawsuit.
“We want people to understand our suit relates only to the digital recreation. The clients felt [after they saw it] that effectively turned what was a classic into a porn flick. That’s really the difference,” he mentioned.
He continued, “The emphasis on the youthful nudity is exploitative and our clients feel like there’s absolutely no excuse for that. The story doesn’t need it, they’ve never consented to those nude pictures being in the film, even back in the 1968 film. Zeffirielli persuaded them to be photographed in the nude, there’s nothing in the contract about it, there’s nothing in the script.”
Lokhandwala additionally famous, “This case is about the dignity in remembrance of two beloved individuals. We all, as people, should have the right to dignity in our remembrance and legacy. No company – no matter how powerful – should be abl to affect another person’s remembrance and legacy without their consent.”
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Per the actors’ attorneys, Hussey and Whiting by no means gave written consent for the nude scene or the photographs taken associated to it. (Silver Screen Collection/Getty Images)
Representatives for Paramount, and Criterion didn’t instantly reply to Fox News Digital’s request for remark concerning the new submitting.
Hussey and Whiting had beforehand filed a lawsuit final yr towards Paramount Pictures claiming that the nude scene in query within the 1968 movie was little one pornography and that the pair had been sexually abused whereas filming it, and in search of $500 million in damages.
The decide dominated that the movie scene was underneath the safety of the First Amendment, explaining that Hussey and Whiting “have not put forth any authority showing the film here can be deemed to be sufficiently sexually suggestive as a matter of law to be held to be conclusively illegal.”
In that swimsuit, the actors claimed that Zeffirelli initially instructed them they’d not movie nude and would put on flesh-colored clothes as an alternative. However, when it got here time to movie the scene, the director allegedly insisted the 2 youngsters be nude, “or the Picture would fail.”
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In a earlier lawsuit, Whiting and Hussey allege that Zeffirelli insisted the 2 youngsters be nude “or the Picture would fail.” (Höhn/ullstein bild by way of Getty Images)
Zeffirelli died in 2019, however his son launched a press release denouncing the preliminary lawsuit.
“It is embarrassing to hear that today, 55 years after filming, two elderly actors who owe their notoriety essentially to this film wake up to declare that they have suffered an abuse that has caused them years of anxiety and emotional discomfort,” Pippo Zeffirelli instructed The Guardian in a press release.
The new submitting reiterates the claims towards Zeffirelli, noting Hussey and Whiting, “became convinced, as a result of a major change in societal norms popularly known as the ‘Me Too Movement’ persuaded them that they had been victims of Zeffirelli’s ‘grooming’ of them as illicit targets of his sexual proclivity while they were minors and began to believe that the ‘ambiance of the film’ excuse given by Zeffirelli for his insistence that they perform without clothing was not a creature of his genuine artistic conceit, but rather of his sexual desire.”
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Hussey and Whiting’s new submitting reiterates their claims towards Zeffirelli, together with allegations of “grooming.” (Evening Standard/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
As Romaine mentioned on behalf of his purchasers, “It’s one thing for them to tolerate, and that’s the best word you can use, tolerate, the inclusion of pictures that Zeffirelli told them would never be shown publicly, would never belong to anybody but Zeffirelli, even not have any photographs of their nudity,” however “then to turn it around in 2023 and turn that into a lewd exposition of their juvenile intimate areas, that was it, that was when they realized this was wrong, this should not be. And so that’s what this suit is all about, really has nothing to do with what happened in 1968 other than as background.”
The subsequent court docket date for the case is in June, the place attorneys will converse with the decide for a case administration convention listening to.
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