Animator Buck Woodall accuses Disney of stealing ideas from his script for a Polynesian-inspired animated film titled "Bucky" for the company's hit "Moana" franchise.

Moana 2, expected to receive an Academy Award nomination for best animated feature, sees the Polynesian teenager reunite with Maui for another ocean adventure after she receives an unexpected call from her wave finding ancestors. The film earned $57.5m on its opening day and has already grossed $989.8m worldwide.

Animator Buck Woodall claims former Mandeville Films development director Jenny Marchick passed his "substantially similar" screenplay to Disney years before "Moana" premiered.

Disney has been hit with a copyright lawsuit alleging that the popular Moana franchise was lifted from a decades-old screenplay without the writer's consent. The writer is now suing for $10billion in a new copyright claim.

Buck Woodall has filed a $10 billion lawsuit against Disney, accusing the company of copying his animated project Bucky for its Moana franchise. Woodall claims he shared his work with a former Mandeville Films director,

Mr Woodall is suing Disney for $10 billion, or 2.5 per cent of Moana's gross revenue. He claims he provided the screenplay and trailer of his movie to former Mandeville Films director of development Jenny Marchick who is now DreamWorks Animation's head of development for features.

Animator Buck Woodall claims Disney's hit animation copied ideas from his own work which "could not possibly have been developed by chance or without malicious intentions". Ron Clements, the director of Moana,

Buck Woodall claimed in his lawsuit that Disney's Moana franchise exhibits “breathtaking” similarities to his script for Bucky the Wave Warrior