Artist Joe DeVito, who back in 2004 illustrated Kong: King of Skull Island for Dark Horse (see “Dark Horse Launches Prose Imprint”), is suing Legendary Entertainment and Warner Bros. claiming that he created the origin story and universe explaining Kong’s legendary home island and pitched it to Legendary and Warner Bros. for a TV series, only to see the companies turn his concept into the Kong: Skull Island movie Legendary and Warner Bros. are planning to release on March 17, 2017 (see “Best in Shows-Q1 2017”).

According to The Hollywood Reporter, DeVito began working on his Skull Island origin saga back in 1992 with the family and heirs of King Kong creator Merian C. Cooper, and there is no doubt that DeVito was given credit in the new Boom! Studios Kong of Skull Island miniseries, which is slated to debut on July 13.  Boom’s publicity material specifically states that the new series is endorsed and authorized by King Kong/ Skull Island creator Merian C. Cooper’s family and grounded in artist/author Joe DeVito’s Skull Island illustrated novel sequel.

More than a decade after working with the Cooper estate, DeVito partnered with producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura to create a big-budget TV series based on Kong of Skull Island and he claims that he pitched the TV show concept to Legendary and Warner Bros. who then used his concepts to fashion a motion picture script for the upcoming 2017 film.

So far neither Warner Bros. nor Legendary Entertainment has commented on DeVito’s lawsuit, which was filed on Wednesday.