Angelina Jolie's deaf former employee claims actress 'stole' her idea of a deaf superhero for Marvel's 'The Eternals'
Antoinette Abbamonte has claimed that actress and producer Angelina Jolie stole her idea of a deaf superhero for Disney's and Marvel's planned 'The Eternals' movie which is set to be released in November 2020. Abbamonte, who has been deaf since birth, was hired by Jolie to teach American Sign Language (ASL) to two of her six children.
Abbamonte, 53, is also a film producer and actress and claims that she pitched the idea of a deaf superhero to Jolie, 44, in 2018. According to Daily Mail, Abbamonte said that Jolie "looked down on" her and added, "I thought that [Jolie] was stealing my ideas to paint herself like she is helping the world."
Earlier this year, Abbamonte's attorney sent an official demand letter to Jolie's legal team, claiming intellectual property theft. The letter says, "It appears that you expressly solicited the idea of the Deaf Superhero from Antoinette and commercialized it together with Marvel Studios and Disney without compensating Antoinette," and asks for Abbamonte to be given credit as well as compensated for her idea.
Abbamonte claims that Jolie treated her like a second-class citizen, adding, "That's how I feel [and I want to] announce to the world that you can't treat deaf people like that." According to Abbamonte, Jolie repeatedly asked her if she could hear music and dance, which Abbamonte found ignorant and offensive.
She also says that Jolie became interested in Abbamonte's life as a deaf person, saying, "She started asking all of these questions that she never seemed interested in before, and started acting funny," and added that Jolie and her children "always asked me which movies I like and discuss them."
When Abbamonte found out about 'The Eternals', she reached out to Jolie about it and to ask how it happened, to which Jolie reportedly responded, "the universe works in mysterious ways."
Abbamonte says that Jolie did not answer her when she asked the A-list actress twice if she had the idea before or after Abbamonte started discussing with the actress and her children.
The letter sent to Jolie's legal team states, "It appears that you wanted to endear yourself to the deaf community and sought to learn as much as you could from Antoinette. More importantly, it appears that you were expressly seeking ideas from Antoinette about a potential movie role for a deaf character for compensation." So far, Jolie has not responded to the accusations.
'The Eternals' is set to star 'The Walking Dead' actress, Lauren Ridloff, as Makkari, the first-ever deaf superhero. The film will also star Angelina Jolie, Richard Madden, Kumail Nanjiani, Gemma Chan, and Salma Hayek. The movie is intended to be the 25th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU).