Could Death Race be Delayed?

Paul W.S. Anderson’s Death Race opens in theaters this Friday, but one Hollywood writer is looking to stop it from hitting the multiplex, and it’s not because he’s trying to save audiences from the pain of sitting through an Anderson action flick.

Writer Adam Stone is trying to halt the release because he claims, in a copyright infringement lawsuit filed Tuesday, that the Universal thriller is based on a script he pitched to the film’s producer-director Paul W.S. Anderson and producer Jeremy Bolt.

Stone says that after the producers passed, Bolt made and kept a copy of his screenplay, titled Joust, to use as a “blueprint” for Anderson’s revision of the script for Death Race.

While Death Race is purported to be a remake of the 1975 cult classic Death Race 2000, Stone contends in his lawsuit that it actually is based on Joust and that there are at least 39 elements in the soon-to-be released film that mirror his screenplay.

So if Death Race doesn’t show up in theaters on Friday you know why. Odds are though that Universals plethora of lawyers will make sure things continue on schedule.