'Twilight' movie studio sues Renton company over Forks documentary

"Twilight" fans know all about the rivalry between vampire Edward Cullen and werewolf Jacob Black. Now, another type of rivalry has emerged, and a Renton company known for publishing educational software is at the center.

Movie studio Summit Entertainment, which owns the stylized "Twilight" trademark, filed a federal lawsuit this week in California accusing Renton's Topics Entertainment of ripping off its cover art for an upcoming documentary DVD titled "Forks: Bitten by Twilight."

Summit plans to release its own Forks documentary on DVD next month to coincide with the DVD release of "New Moon," the second movie in the popular teenage-romance series.

Summit's documentary is called "Twilight in Forks: The Saga of the Real Town"; Summit says Topics' cover art is too similar to its own.

Summit, which filed suit Monday in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, wants Topics to stop promoting its documentary, plus unspecified damages and attorney fees.

Topics Chief Executive Officer Greg James declined to comment, citing the advice of a Los Angeles attorney.

Summit's documentary was filmed and produced by Heckelsville Media. The suit claims that Heckelsville talked to James last August about possibly selling the licensing rights to Topics, but James was not familiar with the "Twilight" movies.

"After researching the matter further," the suit states, James expressed an interest in working with Heckelsville, and the two sides "discussed in detail the prospective contents of" the documentary, as well as a mock cover featuring photos of a red truck belonging to heroine Bella Swan and a "Welcome" sign in Forks.

Heckelsville then entered into a deal with Summit to sell it, not Topics, the rights to the documentary. The DVD cover now features an image of a moonlit forest of trees, as well as photos of the truck and "Welcome" sign.

Summit's documentary is scheduled to go on sale March 20 with a suggested retail price of $19.99.

Meanwhile, Topics went on to create its own documentary and set March 16 as the release date, according to the suit. A promotional flier sent to large retailers, including Best Buy, Sam's Club and Target, lists the same price, and uses photos of Bella's truck and the Forks "Welcome" sign, the suit states.

Summit also takes aim at Topics' DVD cover art, saying it uses the "Twilight" name in a "confusingly similar" font as Summit's stylized version. Other aspects — an image of a moonlit forest of trees and a quote attributed to "Twilight" author Stephenie Meyer — is "likely to result in continued confusion amongst retailers and the general public," the suit says.

Seattle Times researcher Gene Balk contributed to this report.

Amy Martinez: 206-464-2923 or amartinez@seattletimes.com