Copyright
Dispute over “Manta Manta” film settled
Stefan Cantz, the screenwriter of the 1991 cult film “Manta Manta”, has reached an agreement with Constantin Film. photo
© Britta Schultejans/dpa
The screenwriter of “Manta Manta” sued the sequel to the Til Schweiger film, which was released in 2023. An agreement has now been reached in court.
The dispute between the production company Constantin Film and the screenwriter of the 1990s film “Manta Manta” over the sequel from last year have been settled. The disputing parties agreed on a settlement on Monday before the Munich I Regional Court. Constantin Film will pay 35,000 euros to the author Stefan Cantz, who wrote the script for the first part but was no longer involved in “Manta Manta – Second Part”.
Constantin managing director Gero Worstbrock apologized to Cantz in court. He expressed his “regret about how it all went down and that it came across to them that way,” he told Cantz. “It was never the intention to hide your merits under a bushel. We never denied that you were the author of the first film.”
The two men shook hands and Cantz, who had originally asked for more than 100,000 euros, was very happy with the settlement. “That’s what we wanted,” he told the German Press Agency. It was never about money for him, but it was about recognition. He hopes for a “signal effect” for other screenwriters who will take his dispute in court (ref. 42 O 6331/23) “as an indication to fight for their own interests.”
Cantz, the screenwriter of the 1991 cult film, had sued the production company Constantin Film over the comedy “Manta Manta – Second Part” by director Til Schweiger. The film also made headlines because there was criticism of the production conditions and allegations against Schweiger. But Cantz criticized something completely different: From his point of view, Constantine had no right to continue writing his story without asking him.
He saw the continuation of the story about the car enthusiast and passionate speeder Bertie (Schweiger) and hairdresser Uschi (Tina Ruland) from 2023 as violating the editing rights to his decades-old script. Cantz said that the sequel takes the original work – i.e. his script – as a basis and explicitly follows on from it.