In the same week that we’ve reported on Bob and Harvey Weinstein‘s legal troubles with would-be Scream 4 producer Cathy Konrad (and following last week’s piece on Michael Moore and Fahrenheit 9/11), The Weinstein Company has released an official response to claims made by makers of the animated movie Escape From Planet Earth that the Weinstein brothers sabotaged the film before paying out $500,000 in order to quieten the dispute.

The Hollywood Reporter writes that the $50 million lawsuit was filed last month by the film’s director, Tony Leech, and its producer, Brian Inerfeld, who claimed the Weinsteins botched their film by keeping it in an unwarranted lengthy development process.

The Weinsteins motioned to dismiss the case late last month and also suggested that New York courts are less able to accommodate such a lawsuit than a California court, given that the case “will require significant expert testimony concerning issues relating to creative control, the meaning of the term ‘pay and play,’ the commonality and significance of script revisions and other customs and practices in the motion picture business”.