Quentin Tarantino withdrew on May 8 his $1 million lawsuit against Gawker Media over an allegedly leaked copy of a screenplay the director plans to use for his next film.
According to court papers, the director dropped the complaint against the gossip and media website without prejudice, meaning he could re-file the lawsuit at a later date with added allegations.
No reason was given for Tarantino’s decision to drop the suit.
Tarantino filed an amended version of the lawsuit on May 1 after a federal judge dismissed the original complaint and gave him a week to re-file.
The Pulp Fiction director alleged that Gawker induced an unidentified reader who had a copy of The Hateful Eight screenplay to leak it to the website, which then promoted itself as the exclusive source to download and read the Western-themed movie script.
Tarantino alleged that after Gawker “caused” one of its readers to leak the 146-page script, the website posted an article with the headline, “Here is the Leaked Quentin Tarantino Hateful Eight Script,” with a link to the screenplay on Gawker’s Defamer blog.
Damages stemming from the leaked script amounted to more than $1 million, according to the lawsuit.
Tarantino initially said he was so irate about what happened that he scrapped plans to make The Hateful Eight. But the director-writer held a reading of the script last month and told audiences that he was going ahead with the film.
