A Florida man is calling on Rockstar Games to pay him $US2 million for showing literally one second of a character who looks like him in the reveal trailer for Grand Theft Auto 6. Lawrence Sullivan, AKA “Florida Joker,” accused the studio of stealing his likeness in his latest TikTok video. But a Red Dead Redemption 2 voice actor wasn’t having it.
Sullivan, who got his face tattooed to resemble Jared Leto’s version of the Joker following the Batman villain’s appearance in 2016’s Suicide Squad, has been trying to monetize his recent flicker in the limelight. “Let’s talk,” he said in a public call to Rockstar after parodies of him and other viral social media figures appeared in GTA 6’s long-awaited first trailer. Over the weekend, he followed up with more specific demands.
“We gotta talk or [if] not you gotta give me like a mil or two,” Sullivan said in his latest TikTok video. “Florida Joker ain’t having that, y’all took my likeness, y’all took my life.” State publicity laws often protect people’s right to profit off their own likeness, with notable exceptions for things like parody.
One person who seems to think Sullivan has no reason to complain is Roger Clark, the voice actor behind Red Dead Redemption 2’s protagonist, Arthur Morgan. “[Rockstar Games is] lawyered up, man,” he said in his own TikTok video, according to PC Gamer. “They know exactly what they can and cannot get away with. If I were you, I would use the notoriety they just threw your way to your advantage. Capitalize on it somehow. You ain’t getting a job at Home Depot with that face.”
Clark has since deleted the video, maybe because he felt bad about dunking on Sullivan’s appearance, or maybe because he didn’t want to elevate the social media drama involving his past employer. In the words of Arthur Morgan, “We can’t change what’s done, we can only move on.”
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