Legal Battles Ensue Over ‘To Kill A Mockingbird’

Aaron Sorkin’s Broadway version of To Kill A Mockingbird sparked controversy before its release when the Harper Lee estate sued the producers, claiming the script deviated too much from the novel. The dispute was eventually settled before the play debuted, but new legal battles followed soon after.

The producer of the new adaptation, Scott Rudin, hit regional theatrical adaptations of the novel with cease and desist letters to stop production. These versions were using an older script written by Christopher Sergel, and due to a licensing agreement between Rudin and the Lee estate the productions were asked to stop.

The legal action garnered severe backlash, including a #BoycottRudinPlays hashtag on Twitter:


Feeling the severity of the backlash, Rudin has offered a compromise: Theater companies can still put on To Kill A Mockingbird, but they must use Sorkin’s script.




The announcement has garnered mixed reactions from theater companies who had already rehearsed the Sergel script. It is currently unknown if all the theater companies who had productions of To Kill A Mockingbird underway will use Sorkin’s script.



Featured Image Via Playbill