Sir Ben Kingsley Suing Disney Over Snoke Likeness
Despite its best attempts to avoid controversy with Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Disney has come under fire for one of the new characters in the film. Supreme Leader Snoke – an entirely motion captured CG villain – is facing his greatest threat yet in the form of Sir Ben Kingsley. The actor made famous by his portrayal of peace-loving Gandhi is waging an all-out war with the House of Mouse over the new face of evil in the galaxy. After the jump, we explore whether Kingsley has a case, and what the implications may be for Lord Snoke in Episode VIII and beyond.
The Supreme Leader may be wise, but Disney not-so-much as the entertainment juggernaut has left itself open to litigation given a recent bout of internal documents that have surfaced. A series of controversial email exchanges between Rick Carter and Doug Chiang have recently been made public, and they could prove very costly for everyone involved.
At the heart of the matter is the likeness of Supreme Leader Snoke, one of the heavily touted entirely motion captured characters from The Force Awakens. The villain’s design went through several rounds of iterations over the course of the last 18 months as Carter’s team struggled to find the right balance of evil and vulnerability. Early rounds emphasized a reptilian design reminiscent of the bounty hunter Bossk as seen in The Empire Strikes Back. The lizard-like concept gave way to a more traditional design in the vain of the classic Roswell UFO aliens. While well received, Carter and Chiang felt Snoke should look like he’d “been to Hell and back.” This is where the emails become problematic. As pre-production was coming to a close and still nothing approved for Snoke’s design, the team began to take shortcuts.
Rather than sketch a proposal, designers began to reference specific people going so far as to pull stills of them and add design flourishes on top of their likenesses. Within a 50+ long email thread it becomes very apparent that Snoke was based on Sir Ben Kingsley. Below are a pair of quotes taken directly from the emails:
SBK is perfect. He’s got that whole Indian guru vibe but can play a mean son of a (redacted). Remember Sexy Beast? Picture that but with a hole in his head and half his mouth wired shut.
I like it but no goattee or whatever the hell he had on his face in that Iron Man. We’ll also save a mint as Serkis won’t have to roll on the floor like an idiot to “find” the character. We’ll just get him Gandhi and Sexy Beast on Blu Ray.
Damning to say the least. The 70+ year old Oscar winner wasted no time in bringing forward a lawsuit. Here’s where it gets complicated. Sources tell us Kingsley isn’t upset that they used his likeness per se, he’s simply miffed they never approached him for the role in the first place.
I love Star Wars. It would have been an honor had they approached me. I could have pulled off the look entirely with practical makeup too. It’s a shame how crap that CG puppet of me looks.
Kingsley has taken great issue with the casting of motion capture specialist Andy Serkis.
Bloke’s a hack. He’s made a career out of playing versions of me over and over again. I should have stopped him at Gollum but I thought that would be the end of it.
For the record both Kingsley and Serkis stand 5’8″ and possess similar ethic ambiguities, lending credence to the assertions. The elder thespian spoke at great length about why Snoke is a role he was born for unlike Serkis.
Supreme Leader Snoke is in charge of the Knights of Ren, is he not? Is Andy Serkis a knight of any sort? Poppycock! What’s my name? Sir mother (redaction) Ben Kingsley (redaction)!!
Once Kingsley’s comments made their way back to Serkis, their feud began in earnest. In fact, the “face of modern day motion capture” threw himself into his next project, Jungle Book: Origins, primarily because Kingsley is starring in a rival version, Disney’s The Jungle Book.
Kingsley is in a bit of a Catch-22.
I know what I have to do but I’m not sure I have the strength to do it. I want to sue them, but I’m in their next big film.
While the Sexy Beast star is moving forward with his lawsuit against Disney for the moment, the actor’s hoping they can reach an amicable agreement out of court.
I’m being very reasonable. I just want them to change Snoke’s face to someone else’s… Maybe Serkis’ own for once. Ew. On second thought, just pay me for the use of my likeness.
An out of court settlement would prevent negative PR from hurting Disney’s The Jungle Book. And since Serkis wants to emsure the film fares well against Serkis’ version, it seems unlikely the Snoke lawsuit will ever reach a court of law.
I want to destroy Serkis’ low rent bungle-of-a-jungle movie at the box office to prove once and for all, I am the better version of me.
As for the fates of The Force Awakens design leads Carter and Chiang, whose emails led to the Snoke kerfuffle, they’ve been thoroughly rebuked by Lucasfilm chief Kathleen Kennedy. You can expect Episode VIII’s character designs to not be based on any real world Oscar-winning actors.
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