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Inside The Billion Dollar Matrix Lawsuit, One of the Internet’s Most Pervasive Legends

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Was a woman who wrote an original story more than 30 years ago plagiarized then deposed by the powerful Hollywood machine? Was she awarded billions after a heated lawsuit? A claim that has circulated around the Internet for years says so, but in actuality it’s little more than a longstanding legend. Since 2005, multiple stories have popped up on the Internet about Sophia Stewart, a writer who now lives in Salt Lake City, winning a judgment against Andy and Larry (now Lana) Wachowski, 20th Century Fox and director James Cameron among others, and being awarded millions in damages. One from thaindian.com, dated 2009, makes the phony claim, which has found its way to various Facebook accounts and a since-corrected CNN iReport. Before being corrected, that iReport went viral again early this week. According to court documents obtained by TIME, those stories are false. In the case of a lawsuit filed in 2003 claiming damages, Stewart alleged that the idea of the 1984 film The Terminator and the 1999 film The Matrix  were stolen from her own screen treatment entitled “The Third Eye,” which was copyrighted in 1983. The documents show that Stewart claimed she was defrauded of $200 million, plus royalties, a hefty sum if she could prove that the Wachowskis and Cameron had ripped her off. On her website, where she dubs herself “The Mother of the Matrix,” Stewart says she answered a magazine ad in 1986 that said the Wachowskis were soliciting science fiction stories to be made into a comic book, but after she sent it she never heard from the defendants. However, her court claim goes back even further, saying she gave her original six-page treatment to 20th Century Fox in 1981, but did not get any acknowledgment of their receiving it until 1985, when it was rejected. At any rate, after viewing The Matrix, she said she immediately recognized her story and she wound up filing suit. Click here to see a copy of Stewart’s court complaint. But the courts do not believe that her work was plagiarized by the

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