LOS ANGELES: Hollywood screenwriter and producer sued Walt Disney Co on Tuesday. He accused the studio of copying its Oscar-winning animated blockbuster Zootopia from his work without permission. Gary Goldman, whose credits include the 2012 Arnold Schwarzenegger film Total Recall and the 2002 Tom Cruise film Minority Report, filed his copyright infringement lawsuit in the United States District Court in Los Angeles. He said Disney replicated, sometimes “virtually verbatim”, the themes, settings, plot, characters and dialogue, as well as the title, of his Zootopia concept, which he had pitched to the studio in 2000 and 2009. Disney and its affiliates embrace “a culture that not only accepts the unauthorised copying of others’ original material, but encourages it”, the lawsuit said. “They did it with Zootopia, too, when they copied Gary Goldman’s Zootopia.” In a statement, Disney said, “Mr Goldman’s lawsuit is riddled with patently false allegations. It is an unprincipled attempt to lay claim to a successful film he didn’t create, and we will vigorously defend against it in court.”