Two up-and-comers sued Mark Wahlberg, Dwayne Johnson and HBO for allegedly stealing the idea for the show Ballers from them.
Mail Online reported that Sherri Littleton and Everette Silas said they came up with the HBO show, which they called Off Season back in 2007. The two said they almost signed a deal with Wahlberg and Johnson to create the project in 2009. However, the agreement didn't push through since the creative duo declined to have their names included in the "Created by" credit.
TMZ reported that Silas and Littleton said Ballers and the show they created have plenty of similarities. Both shows are set in Miami featuring how football players live their lives off-field. Both shows also focus on African American athletes. The two said "Ballers" is the title of one of their episodes in Off Season.
"Plaintiffs are informed and believe and on that basis allege, that the more recent work, Ballers, borrows heavily from the Materials and that certain aesthetic elements, including, without limitation, physical appearance of the characters and their vehicles, and plots, scenes, as well as story lines are virtually identical to the Materials that the Defendants had access to," stated in the lawsuit according to a report by Deadline.
"The stories, character traits, scenes, and incidents portrayed in the two works, Ballers and Off Season, are, in many respects, virtually identical and strikingly similar. These substantially similar elements, coupled with the Defendants' direct access to the Materials, leave little doubt that numerous elements of Ballers were copied from Off Season."
Meanwhile, HBO said in a statement that they are confident this lawsuit has no merit. Ballers was renewed for another season during the summer. Besides this show, Mark Wahlberg also partnered with HBO on another show called Entourage.
Wahlberg and Johnson have stared in another project called Pain & Gain, a buddy romp comedy movie in 2012.
