Just a few days after demanding compensation from Rockstar Games, Lawrence Sullivan, aka the Florida Joker, is now looking for even more money, and has threatened the studio with a deadline before he takes legal action.
Sullivan’s issue with Rockstar stems from the reveal trailer for Grand Theft Auto 6, which includes a character who Sullivan believes is deliberately based on his own likeness. Considering the game is set in Florida and the trailer is full of nods to other viral jokes and memes related to the state, there is an argument to be made that Rockstar drew inspiration from Sullivan.
Originally, Sullivan wanted upward of $2 million from Rockstar for using his likeness. Unsurprisingly, it sounds like his demand fell on deaf ears—but rather than give up, Sullivan instead bumped his demand up to $3 million, and claims he’s prepared to take Rockstar to court over it.
“GTA, I’m giving you the biggest free marketing you got [in the] entire history of running this GTA game,” says Sullivan in a TikTok that was shared on Twitter on Dec. 12. “For that, I want an extra million dollars. Y’all taking forever to respond back to me. You see that? Find the other character, find the other person in Florida that portrayed that character. I’ll wait, I will wait. GTA, we got to talk, you think I’m playing? You got three days, three days, before my lawyers go crazy on this case.”
He also says things won’t play out like “the Lindsay Lohan case” because he has “hard evidence.” He’s referring to a similar incident from 2014 where Lohan tried to sue Rockstar for allegedly using her likeness in Grand Theft Auto 5 for the character of Lacey Jonas, even claiming the character had a similar voice and wore the same clothing line as Lohan.
The lawsuit was eventually dismissed in 2016, with a judge ruling, “the artistic renderings are indistinct, satirical representations of the style, look, and persona of a modern, beach-going young woman that are not reasonably identifiable as plaintiff.” What’s more, as The Wall Street Journal reported, the game was a deemed a work of fiction and satire, and it didn’t “fall under the statutory definitions of ‘advertising’ or ‘trade.'” Therefore, it was ruled Lohan didn’t have a leg to stand on.
Even if Sullivan’s lawsuit goes as far as a courtroom, Rockstar can quite easily make the same argument and leave Sullivan with nothing but bills for his lawyers. Never say never, but I wouldn’t bet money on this incident going much further.
