Author launches court challenge against Spielberg over film plot

A CHILDREN’S author is taking on Hollywood legend Steven Spielberg, claiming the director’s production company stole his story for the big-screen hit Chicken Run.

British writer Alan Davidson launched a legal fight this week to prove the animated movie was based on his 1995 novel Escape From Cold Ditch.

He alleges that Chicken Run, produced by Spielberg's DreamWorks studio and animators Peter Lord and Nick Park, infringed copyright protecting his critically acclaimed children's tale of a hen that leads an escape from a chicken farm. And he claims the movie, accredited to Lord and Park, infringes his moral right to be identified as the author.