Mike White, Universal and Illumination Sued for Copyright Infringement Over Animated Film ‘Migration’

Kenneth Giavara, a San Diego-based aspiring screenwriter, filed a federal copyright infringement lawsuit against Mike White, Illumination Entertainment and Universal Pictures, claiming the 2023 animated film “Migration” was lifted from his screenplay, “South for the Winter,” which he wrote in 2007.

According to the complaint filed Friday in the Central District of California, Giavara alleges that, “Defendants brazenly have infringed upon and incorporated numerous [protectable] elements from ‘South for the Winter’ into ‘Migration,’ including plot, sequence, characters, theme, dialogue, mood and setting.”

Additionally, Giavara also alleges that the “similarities between the movie ‘Migration’ and ‘South for the Winter’ are so substantial that i