2 Millais, and a woman, Euphemia Gray, who married Millais after annulling her notoriously unhappy marriage to Ruskin on the scandalous ground of non-consummation.
See, e.g.
, Suzanne Fagence Cooper,
Effie: The Passionate Lives of Effie Gray, John Ruskin and John Everett Millais
(2011) (history); David Lang,
Modern Painters
(1995) (opera); Eva McDonald,
John Ruskin’s Wife
(1979) (novel); J. Murray,
The Order Of Release: The Story Of John Ruskin, Effie Gray And John Everett Millais Told For The First Time In Their Unpublished Letters
(1948) (primary sources); Van Dyke Brooke,
The Love of John Ruskin
(1912) (silent film). Eve Pomerance and Emma Thompson have both contributed to the corpus of works about the Ruskin-Gray-Millais affair. Pomerance authored and copyrighted two screenplays:
The King of the Golden River
(“
King
”)
and
The Secret Trials of Effie Gray
(“
Trials
”). Thompson later authored a screenplay, entitled
Effie
, and registered it with the United States Copyright Office. Thompson subsequently assigned to Effie Film, LLC (“Effie Film”) exclusive ownership of her copyright in
Effie
and all rights in the screenplay, including the right to produce a motion picture on the basis of the screenplay and to seek declarations that the screenplay (or any film based on it) does not infringe on others’ copyrights. A film based on the screenplay, starring Dakota Fanning, Robbie Coltrane, and Thompson, is expected to be released in 2013. On October 4, 2011, counsel for Pomerance sent a letter to counsel for Effie Film setting forth a claim of copyright infringement and alleging eleven similarities between
Effie
and
Trials
. On October 7, 2011, Effie Film filed this suit to obtain a declaratory judgment that
Effie
does not infringe
Trials
. (Dkt. No. 1.) On October 31, 2011, Pomerance filed an answer and alleged counter-claims against Effie Film and Thompson for copyright infringement. (Dkt. No. 7.) Five months later, on March 16, 2012, Effie Film filed a joint motion for judgment on the pleadings as to its declaratory judgment suit and to dismiss Pomerance’s counterclaims pursuant to Rule
Case 1:11-cv-07087-JPO Document 34 Filed 12/18/12 Page 2 of 61