Man Sues After Photo Appears in Movie for 1 Second

It was under the label 'Suspected Gambino family associates'
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Dec 15, 2020 7:08 PM CST
Updated Dec 20, 2020 10:15 AM CST
Man Sues After Photo Appears in Movie for 1 Second
In this image released by Warner Bros. Pictures, Ben Affleck appears in a scene from "The Accountant."   (Chuck Zlotnick/Warner Bros. Pictures via AP)

A businessman who argued that his reputation and business were damaged when his photo briefly appeared in the Ben Affleck movie The Accountant has been awarded $30,000 by a judge in Spain. The Moroccan man, who lives in Spain, had sought $300,000 from Warner Bros., saying he was entitled to a share of the 2016 movie's box office takings, the Guardian reports. The man's photo appeared in the movie for around a second under the label "Suspected Gambino family associates." The film studio said the photo was taken from an FBI arrest warrant issued for the man in 2004 in connection with computer fraud.

The judge—who noted that the man had spent time in prison—said the claimant had failed to prove that he suffered financially from the use of his image, but it had still been used without his consent. "Bear in mind that even if we’re dealing with a work of cinematic fiction, the claimant is not a professional actor who would lose nothing by playing a criminal character, but instead a person beyond the world of art and thus someone very affected by how he is represented and how his image is used," the judge said, per the Guardian. "It’s also well known that many actors and actresses are reluctant to play criminal or villainous characters." (More Warner Bros. stories.)

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