EXCLUSIVE: Louis Theroux’s Mindhouse Productions has been sued by a filmmaker behind 1995’s Alien Autopsy amid production on a Sky series about the extraterrestrial hoax.
Mindhouse is working with BAFTA-winning director John Dower (Lockerbie) on a documentary about Alien Autopsy, which became an international sensation by purporting to depict hazmat-suited officials dissecting the corpse of an alien recovered from a crash site near Roswell.
Spyros Melaris, who is credited with directing Alien Autopsy, has launched legal action against Mindhouse, filing a complaint at England’s Intellectual Property Enterprise Court.
The precise details of his claim are unclear, but in a Facebook post, he has complained about “false attribution, copyright infringement, and misrepresentation.” Melaris has a long-running dispute with Ray Santilli, producer of Alien Autopsy.
Mindhouse has been working with Santilli, and he is being treated as the rightful owner of the Alien Autopsy IP through his company Orbital Media Ltd. Others involved in the original film are contributing to the Mindhouse documentary, including John Humphreys, the sculptor who created the Alien Autopsy hoax body.
Mindhouse is said to be confident in its position. The production company declined to comment, but work on the Sky series is continuing as normal. Sky has been contacted for comment.
Announced in August, a logline for the Sky series said: “As debates over extraterrestrial life reach the highest levels of the U.S. government, with military whistleblowers testifying to encounters with unidentified aerial phenomena, the series ventures deep into the wider world of ufology and the impact of Alien Autopsy.”
The series producer is Rebecca Chapman and the production executive is Suzy Burnet. Executive producers for Mindhouse are Arron Fellows and Emma Whitehead. Commissioning editors for Sky are Kathryn Taylor and Bruce Fletcher.
The post Louis Theroux’s Mindhouse Productions Facing Legal Threat Over ‘Alien Autopsy’ Sky Doc Series appeared first on Deadline.
