From McKenna v. Sony Pictures Entm't, Inc., decided Wednesday by the California Court of Appeal, in an opinion by Justice Lamar Baker, joined by Justices Laurence Rubin & Dorothy Kim:
Paule McKenna …, the executor of the estate of Christopher Jones, sued defendants and respondents Sony Pictures Entertainment, Inc., Boss Film Productions, Inc., and Visiona Romantica, Inc. … for allegedly misusing Jones's name and likeness (posthumously) in the film Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood….
Christopher Jones was a popular actor in the 1960s. He starred in the television series The Legend of Jesse James and a number of movies including 3 in the Attic and Wild in the Streets. Jones quit Hollywood in 1969. He died in 2014.
Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood (the film), is a film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino. It was produced by Boss Film Productions and released by Sony Pictures Entertainment in 2019. The film stars Leonardo DiCaprio as fictional actor Rick Dalton, Brad Pitt as his fictional stunt-double Cliff Booth, and Margot Robbie as real-life actor Sharon Tate. It depicts a few days in the lives of the three main characters in February and August 1969, and imagines (or reimagines, in Tate's case), how their lives intersect with the Charles Manson family.
A variety of products with recognizable name brands appear throughout the course of the film. For example, there is a scene in which Pitt's character Booth cooks a box of Kraft macaroni and cheese. A box of Wheaties cereal is on his counter while he does so, and a copy of TV Guide is seen elsewhere in his home. The same scene includes brief glimpses of Booth's television, which at one point plays an advertisement for Jones's movie 3 in the Attic and identifies Jones as one of its stars. In various other scenes, Booth wears a t-shirt with a logo for Champion spark plugs on it. Characters also at one point drive down Hollywood Boulevard and pass the Pantages Theatre, which was displaying a marquee for 3 in the Attic featuring Jones's name.
The court concluded that the complaint was properly dismissed under California's anti-SLAPP statute:
