[News] Activision is being sued over the Modern Warfare character Mara

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A writer says the character is based on one he created for a speculative film pitch called November Renaissance.

Activision is facing a copyright infringement suit brought by writer, photographer, and videographer Clayton Haugen, who alleges that the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare character Mara is based on a character he created in 2017 for November Renaissance, a story that he hoped to build into a feature film.

The lead character in November Renaissance is Cade Janus, a "female vigilante and pariah figure" caught up in near-future corporate warfare directed by "a non-human intelligence" over control of the process of human augmentation. It all sounds very Deus Ex-like, although Haugen said that opting for a woman in the lead role "would distinguish it from an over-saturated market of action and science fiction movies."

The project was actually rooted in a successful Kickstarter campaign that ran all the way back in early 2012, although the description of the film in the lawsuit, available via TorrentFreak, is quite a bit different from this early concept:
It's a pretty generic B-movie setup overall, but Haugen went all-in on the lead character, hiring someone to portray her and creating a portfolio of photographs of the character decked out with various military props—all of which he says he registered with the US Copyright Office.

Haugen pitched his idea to various film studios, and also posted the photos on his website, Instagram, and in a series of calendars. This is where Activision comes into the matter: Haugen claims the publisher copied the photos without his knowledge or permission and used them in a development document for Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 to illustrate that the game's casting "should be reflective of the makeup of the modern po[CENSORED]tion."

It went a step further with the next game, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. The suit claims that Infinity Ward hired the same model and makeup artist that Haugen used for his Cade Janus photos, had the model's hair done in the same way, posted the Cade Janus photos on a wall at the studio to use as a visual guideline, and when they didn't have "female tactical clothing" to use for the character, "asked the talent to try to get Haugen to lend her the same clothing and props from his Cade Janus Photographs."