Quentin Tarantino is being sued for $100M over the Django Unchained script

Quentin Tarantino, The Weinstein Company and Columbia Pictures have been busy promoting the director's latest film, The Hateful Eight, but their attention may drift a bit after being served with a $100 million lawsuit.

The lawsuit, which was served on Christmas Eve and filed with the District of Columbia's District Court, alleges that Tarantino's script for Django Unchained infringed on the copyright of plaintiffs Oscar Colvin, Jr. and his son Torrance J. Colvin's own film's screenplay.

According to the lawsuit, the Colvins originally submitted the script for their film, Freedom, to the William Morris Agency and alluded that Tarantino could have had access.

In the claim, they state that they created the "backbone" of the script and that after they had put in the work, Tarantino used the idea to make Django Unchained.

"Tarantino took the plot lines and main story of Freedom and Tarantino-ised them," the lawsuit reads.

The Colvins added in the court documents detailed character descriptions that they had originally come up with before Tarantino's Django Unchained came out and showcased certain similarities between them. Included was a comparison of the film's main character, Django Freeman (played by Jamie Foxx), and the main character in Freedom, Jackson Freeman. According to the Colvins, both characters were "escaped slaves" who wanted to buy their families' freedoms from a twisted plantation owner.

Tarantino has previously said that the film paid homage to many spaghetti westerns, but always maintained Django Unchained was his own take on the genre.

The case is currently under review.