Disney Accused Of Stealing Concept For 'Inside Out'

(RTTNews) - Child development and parenting specialist Denise Daniels sued Walt Disney Co. and Pixar, saying that the idea of anthropromorphised, color coded characters representing single emotions in the movie "Inside Out" was her brain-child.

In a filing at the U.S. district court of California, the mental health veteran with more than four decades of experience in grief and trauma counseling for young victims, alleged breach of implied-in-fact contract. She had a series of discussions with the Disney for a unique children's program called "The Moodsters."

Daniels said her idea was to present a children's program to showcase the happiness, anger, sadness, fear and love. She represented the animated characters in different colors. Happiness in yellow, anger in red, sadness in blue, fear in green and love in pink. Inside Out was a story of an 11 year old girl who carried joy, sadness, anger, fear and disgust as individual characters within her head.

She had pitched the idea with the top executives of Walt Disney studio and even completed the pilot episode in 2007. The lawsuit said Disney - Pixar used the idea, however they neither gave credit nor compensated Daniels.

The movie was released in 2015 and has won the academy award for best original screenplay. Daniels noted that Disney-Pixar had access to the Moodsters well before 2010.

Inside Out, directed by Pete Docter, grossed $857 million worldwide, with an opening weekend of $90 million. Daniels in her filing said she had discussed about the Moodsters with Docter for an extended period of time and walked him through in detail to character and concept underlying the tv show.