Director's claim thrown out of court

Jerry Seinfeld has triumphed in a court case over who created his hit Netflix series Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee.

The comedian had been sued by Christian Charles, who directed the 2011 pilot episode, and claimed he is the true originator of the show.

Charles said the idea had its roots in the 2002 documentary Comedian, which he also directed, and which included shots of Seinfeld driving across the country.

While making the movie, he said he pitched a show called Two Stupid Guys In A Stupid Car Driving To A Stupid Town to the comedian, which he rejected. But Charles said that in 2011 Seinfeld got back in touch about making a car-based talk show, which became the web series.

However, Seinfeld’s attorneys said the copyright claims were ‘objectively meritless’ and based on accusations that were ‘threadbare’.  While insisting the comedian came up with the idea himself,  they concede the concept of ‘comedians driving in a car to get coffee and engaging in comedic banter’ is probably too simple to be copyrighted anyway Indeed, in the UK Red Dwarf star Robert Llewellyn had a very similar series caked Carpool in 2009.

Now Judge Alison J. Nathan of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan, has thrown out Charles’s case, saying he had waited too long to sue. The director didn’t act when the series first launched on the Crackle platform in 2012, only when Netflix paid a reported $750,000-an-episode for it in 2017.

The show has run for 84 episodes across 11 seasons with guests including  Eddie Murphy, Jay Leno, Ricky Gervais, David Letterman, Chris Rock and even Barack Obama.

However, earlier this week Seinfeld intimated that he was not going to make any more episodes now his Netflix deal expired with the release of his latest stand-up special 23 Hours To Kill.

Published: 8 May 2020