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More than two and a half years after Gary Oldman took home the Oscar for his portrayal of Winston Churchill in the Joe Wright-directed and Anthony McCarten-penned Darkest Hour, a History Channel writer is suing the actor, NBCUniversal and others connect to the movie for allegedly ripping off parts of his script.

“[Ben Kaplan] spent years developing, writing and refining Churchill,” says the complaint, seeking a jury trial, filed last week in Los Angeles Superior Court. “Several versions of the script for Churchill were distributed to members of film industry in Los Angeles County, California,” the detailed breach of implied contract action adds. “It was understood by members of the film industry that Mr. Kaplan had created a script for a film about Winston Churchill and was planning on turning that script into a feature film.”

“Defendants’ wrongful conduct includes using numerous specific elements and ideas ideas from Mr.

National Geographic has renewed scripted anthology series Genius for a third season and has revealed that iconic author Mary Shelley, best known for her Gothic novel Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus, will be its subject. The network made the announcement at the conclusion of its upfront Wednesday in New York City.

Mary Shelley will follow brilliant physicist Albert Einstein, who was at the center of Season 1, and famous artist Pablo Picasso, who was the subject of Season 2. Like with the previous seasons, Nat Geo and Fox 21 Television Studios and Imagine Television are expected to go after big names for the lead — Geoffrey Rush played Einstein, and Antonio Banderas portrayed Picasso. The Season 3 renewal comes a week ahead of the April 24 premiere of Genius: Picasso.

“Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein left an indelible mark on generations of imaginations,” said Carolyn Bernstein, Evp, global development and production for National Geographic Global Networks.

Brilliant: Nat Geo just unveiled the subject for its third season of “Genius,” Mary Shelley.

The first woman genius to be chronicled by the cable channel’s scripted anthology series basically invented the science fiction and horror genres when she created Frankenstein (yes, and his monster). Shelley’s season will again be executive produced by Brian Grazer and Ron Howard’s Imagine Entertainment, Mwm Studios and Eue/Sokolow.

The series hails from Fox 21 Television Studios.

Also Read: Nat Geo Wild Renews 'The Incredible Dr. Pol,' 3 Other Shows (Exclusive)

Showrunner, executive producer and writer Ken Biller will continue his role overseeing the new season, per Nat Geo. In addition to he, Grazer and Howard, Francie Calfo, Gigi Pritzker, Rachel Shane, Sam Sokolow and Jeff Cooney are also executive producers. Anna Culp is producer.

Filming on “Genius 3” is expected to begin later this year.

“Genius: Picasso” premieres on Tuesday, by the way. The first season followed Albert Einstein’s exploits, and brought a whole bunch of awards and eyeballs to National Geographic.

Also Read: Katie Couric Says Nat Geo Docuseries Goes Further Than Mainstream Media: 'These Conversations Aren't Happening' (Video)

“Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein left an indelible mark on generations of imaginations,” said Carolyn Bernstein, executive vice president, global development and production for National Geographic Global Networks. “Equally inspiring is the story of Shelley’s relentless innovation, coupled with her desire to live on her own unconventional terms despite immense societal and cultural obstacles. I can’t wait for our talented team to bring her remarkable, relevant and timely story to life for season three of ‘Genius’ and do justice to her literary legacy.”

“Mary Shelley has inspired countless filmmakers with her tale of the wretch brought to life by science gone wrong, but very few have fully captured her insightful reflections on society in the myth she left behind,” added Howard. “Few know of her struggles due to gender inequities, her additional writings, her influence on other historically significant individuals and society at large. Showcasing someone like Mary Shelley and her amazing intellect, compassion and fortitude is exactly what this series is for, and we are looking forward to continuing our successful partnership with National Geographic and Fox 21 Television Studios.”

“Our experience with Courteney, Carolyn and the Nat Geo team has been phenomenal, and our award-winning first season exceeded even our own high expectations,” said Bert Salke, president of Fox 21 Television Studios. “Audiences are in for a treat with our follow-up, featuring a transformative performance by Antonio Banderas as our Picasso, and a compelling story created by Ken Biller. The choice of Mary Shelley as the subject of our third season speaks to the incredible depth of the franchise. How fitting at this moment in time to pivot to one of the many female geniuses in human history, and Mary’s story is both stranger than fiction and incredibly dramatic. We can’t wait to get started.”

Also Read: 'Hidden Figures' TV Series in the Works at Nat Geo

Here is Nat Geo’s kickass bio on Shelley:

A brilliant thinker, radical intellectual and proto-feminist, Mary Shelley (1797-1851) brought to life one of the most enduring stories of the modern age while still a teenager. “Frankenstein; or the Modern Prometheus” is a cautionary tale of unchecked scientific ambition and a sophisticated meditation on social institutions, personal freedom and compassion that has captured imaginations and continues to be relevant since it was first published 200 years ago. Shelley masterfully invented the Science Fiction/Horror genre with her tale of a creature brought to life, subsequently going on to create the Post-Apocalyptic genre with her later novel, “The Last Man.”

An intellectual prodigy who was inspired from an early age by the writing of her unconventional mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, Shelley was determined to prove that women were the intellectual and creative equals of men. One of few women to support herself as an author during the early 18th century, Shelley wrote short stories, reviews, travelogues, and made prolific contributions to the world’s first encyclopedia, she also wrote six novels. Shelley’s inner circle included countless literary and scientific luminaries of the day, including Lord Byron, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Mary and Charles Lamb, Humphry Davy and Leigh Hunt.

Shelley met the love of her life, Romantic poet, amateur scientist and still-married Percy Bysshe Shelley, at the age of 16. After losing her virginity to Shelley at her mother’s gravesite, the pair eloped and were cast out by her father, the radical intellectual William Godwin. Shelley was to endure a lifetime of tragic misfortune, watching three of her four children die, losing multiple friends and family members to suicide, and outliving her husband, who drowned at sea. In true gothic style, Shelley elected to keep her late husband’s heart after his death

Shelley’s writing was heavily influenced by the great scientific innovation and experimentation of the early 19th century. Scientists like Luigi Galvani, Giovanni Aldini and Erasmus Darwin, grandfather of Charles, figured prominently in her life. The story of Frankenstein was inspired in part by one of the most important scientific theories of the time, Galvanism, the study of the effect of electricity on the dead bodies of animals and humans.

Mary Shelley spent the last few years of her life being looked after by her only surviving child, Percy Florence Shelley, before dying of a brain tumor at the age of 53.

Read original story ‘Genius': Mary Shelley, ‘Frankenstein’ Author, Will Be Nat Geo Show’s First Female Genius (Video) At TheWrap...

Andrew Moir Oct 26, 2017

Andrew takes a nerdy dive into the pop culture real and fictional that's made its way into the world of Red Dwarf...

Creating culture within science-fiction can be tricky. It’s potentially alienating, with the audience required to understand allusions without a reference point. Then again, if you throw in too many contemporary references, the future starts to look dated pretty quickly. Red Dwarf has walked that fine line, building its own stars and entertainment but chucking in the familiar, just to keep the world grounded. We take a look at humanity’s future culture as seen through the eyes of Lister, Rimmer, Cat, Kryten and Holly.

See related Gunpowder episode 1 review Amazon Prime UK: what’s new in October 2017? New on Netflix UK: what's added in October 2017? Music

Red Dwarf set out its fictional musical world early on with the opening scenes of the first episode...

Visage...

Voice...

Vitaphone...

In Dimitri Kirsanoff's Menilmontant a destitute waif, betrayed and abandoned by the man who seduced her, sits on a park bench with her newborn infant. Beside her is an old man eating a sandwich. This wordless exchange is one of the greatest moments ever committed to film. Nadia Sibirskaia’s face reveals all of life’s cruel mysteries as she gazes upon a crust of bread.

The persistence of hope is the dark angel that underlies despair, and here it taunts her mercilessly. A whole series of fluctuations of expression and movement in reaction to anguish, physical pain involving hesitation, dignity, ravenous hunger, survival, self-contempt, modesty, boundless gratitude. All articulated with absolute clarity without hitting notes (without touching the keys). Chaplin could have played either the old man on the bench (his mustache is a sensory device!) or Nadia. And it would have been masterful and deeply affecting,...

This week Simon Russell Beale takes on the royal role in a revival by Sam Mendes at the National Theatre. Here's a look back at Lear on film

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One of the earliest film versions of King Lear (retitled Re Lear) was made in Italy in 1910 with Ermete Novelli as King Lear. What takes over three hours on stage was packed into a dense 16 minutes of action that remains haunting many decades on.

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Almost 80 years before the 1997 movie A Thousand Acres based on Jane Smiley's novel, which transposed the play to contemporary Iowa, French director Louis Feuillade was doing something similar in Le Roi Lear Au Village, a 1911 adaptation in which Lear becomes a blind French farmer who foolishly gives over his land to his two heartless daughters. Alas, I couldn't find any footage online.

This is the time of year that people want good quotes for the New Year, and we've got some New Years Quotes to die for. When you gather with your loved ones to watch your favorite horror movies this New Years Eve, make sure to rattle off a few of the ones that you see below.

If you end up having to watch Dick Clarks rockin eve, well here's hoping that you have enough adult beverage in your system to ease the pain. Typically a nice Holiday Bowl, maybe even wassail will help.

So, check out the selected New Years Eve quotes that we found courtesy of QuoteGarden.com and have we hope you have a wonderful night.

The best resolution for the New Year is that there will be great horror films to feast upon - MoreHorror.com

A New Year's resolution is something that goes in one year and out the other.

The Observer's film critic reflects on The King's Speech – and how his own speech impediment has contributed to his life and character

From as early as I can remember until 1952, when I left home at the age of 18 to go into the army, there was an annual ritual on the afternoon of Christmas Day. Dinner, which meant turkey and all the trimmings followed by plum pudding, began around two o'clock and was carefully timed to end so that everyone could sit there beneath the paper decorations, wearing the hats that came out of the crackers, and earnestly, reverently listen to the king's Christmas message on the radio.

This hallowed national tradition, initiated by Sir John Reith in 1932, was not five years old when George V, who'd given four of them, died. His successor Edward VIII's landmark contribution to broadcasting was his 1936 abdication speech: there was no Christmas message that year.