Who Owns the ‘Ghostface’ Mask? Paramount and Spyglass Sue to Find Out Ahead of ‘Scream 7’ Release

The rights to the iconic Ghostface mask have sparked a legal battle, with Spyglass and Paramount Pictures suing a Los Angeles-based special effects studio claiming ownership of the droopy-eyed horror visage.

In a lawsuit filed on Friday in California federal, the companies say that the Alterian Ghost Factory is threatening copyright infringement litigation ahead of the release of the next installment to the Scream franchise. The suit seeks a court order, which would bar the special effects studio from suing, establishing that it’s on solid legal ground.

“Alterian has never legally established that it owns the rights to the Ghostface mask, and it will not be able to prove it now in this litigation,” the complaint states. “And seeking to disrupt the release of a completed motion picture mere weeks before its release—the seventh installment of a franchise that Alterian watched grow in silence for three decades—is an outrageous attempt to shake down” Spyglass and Paramount.

The appearance of Ghostface in the Scream franchise can be traced back to one of the film’s producers encountering the mask in an abandoned house. The production team subsequently licensed it from Fun World, a costume company that had been manufacturing and selling it since the early 1990s. The mask has been licensed for use in each installment for 30 years.

Alterion argues that Fun World had no right to license the mask, saying that it created the underlying design first, which was later copied by Fun World, the suit says.

But by Paramount’s thinking, the underlying dispute is a fight between Fun World and Alterion. It’s also of the thinking that Alterion has surrendered any potential right to claim ownership of Ghostface since it hasn’t taken action despite knowing of Fun World’s licensing deals for decades.

More to come.

Subscribe Sign Up