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Sep 12, 2006

Posted in Culture

Hollywood "borrows" from The Ronin!

You might have heard of the upcoming movie Splinter (based on a Dark Horse comic book) coming out soon.
The movie seems to turn some heads for its "cutting edge" title sequence in Variety Magazine, directed and animated by editor Jamieson Fry from illustrations by comic book artist Danijel Zerelj.

You can see the opening titles HERE.

What they failed to tell you, was that Rob Chiu from The Ronin was contracted to design that title sequence based on a project he did last year called Black Day To Freedom.

Everything was seemingly going well, untill the studio turned around and gave the "we can't afford it now/there's no time" excuse and then all of a sudden this appears looking like a carbon copy of the original work.

Thank you Hollywood for being so original!

Comments (16)

what a shit, what a shame, what a victory of you Rob!

well that just incredible!! How can some one do this kind of thing?
one thing is for sure...that is a crap comparing to rob work on black day to freedom...

They did it okay, but - not cool at all and no better than Rob and Steve! Blatant rip-off of Rob's work. Rob, I've ranted directly to you enough so you won't see any further development of my ranting about how blatant this is. Haha!

  • Ravi
  • Posted by Ravi
    September 09, 2006 12:41 pm

Ridiculous!

  • grez
  • Posted by grez
    September 09, 2006 12:56 pm

A poor version of a great piece of work. Although, I suppose it's happened to us all at some point (being ripped off).
I've never seen the Ronin's work before, it's really interesting.

  • Made
  • Posted by Made
    September 09, 2006 1:10 pm

i hope Ronin will do something aboutit...

  • Grega
  • Posted by Grega
    September 09, 2006 1:28 pm

Well guys, chill out. You don't know if they gave him a storyboard first with precisely designed sequences... Of course the shots look the same... but that doesn't mean anything.
The "Original" looks great but may be the style wasn't what they were looking for...
I'm not trying to say these guys are clean. I'm just saying that you have to give evidences that this is a real rip off. In that case the artist might have ways and means to sue the guys.

Hold it there Icone, the storyboard for Black Day to Freedom was drawn a bonkers ago, and the trailer was released a long time ago - and then the big guns at hollywood approached Rob to do the opening sequence for the film (Splinter), and he had something different to bring into the opening seq. with the same style for the film but that fell through with so-called financial difficulties the big guns faced and felt that the idea/style isnt working too well, and they still had Black Day to Freedom in their mind, so they hired other studio and got them to work on it, and they basically ripped out the sequences from Black Day to Freedom into the opening seq. for the film, and boom-boom; comes the final edit.

All is based on my assumptions which I hope to be quite accurate.

  • Ravi
  • Posted by Ravi
    September 09, 2006 1:46 pm

There might be grounds to sue for copyright infringement, the sequence is a blatant rip-off and the case is helped even more by the fact that Rob was originally hired to do it. The other design company should be ashamed of themselves.

  • Field
  • Posted by Field
    September 09, 2006 2:29 pm

Unbelievable! Sue 'em Rob! Black day was publicized enough to prove it was in circulation well before this sequence.

  • magnus
  • Posted by magnus
    September 09, 2006 3:12 pm

I agree with Grega. You only got one small part of the story.
Besides, that's not a rip-off. This is a rip-off. ;-)

Fakepilot original


Levi's rip off

  • Fake
  • Posted by Fake
    September 09, 2006 4:17 pm

this definately sucks for sure as situation. but people behold, that this happens all the time, and no one in their right mind would sue a studio; cause then you get a 'reputation'.

again though, definately sucks :(

I mean I know it always happens all around the globe, but there should be a way to start avoid this kind of situations, or at least to protect ourselves!!!!

I stand my support for Rob, his work is inspirational, and no matter how much advert they put on the movie, we all know who did the original!!!

  • Sooz
  • Posted by Sooz
    September 09, 2006 6:49 pm

What tha hell?!?!?!?!
I am shocked! Actually that happens a lot, but when it happens to someone you know, it's a damn thing!

Fake, whoa! That's awfully a blatant rip! haha. And Sooz, you've got it right - I'm on Rob's gounds, and I am there forever, against the team who blatantly ripped the idea off Black Day to Freedom.

  • Ravi
  • Posted by Ravi
    September 09, 2006 9:05 pm

omg thats fucking shit..........

  • Jimmy
  • Posted by Jimmy
    September 09, 2006 12:38 pm