TOM CRUISE SUED FOR $1BILLION OVER 'MISSION IMPOSSIBLE'

Credit: Paramount Pictures

Cruise may have pulled off some of the most epic onscreen heists in the 'Mission Impossible' series, but it seems the biggest heist of all was the alleged stealing of the idea for the 'Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol' script from another screenwriter.

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The 51-year-old actor has been named in the lawsuit alongside Paramount Pictures and 10 other defendants in the copyright infringement lawsuit, in which the claimant is seeking $1 billion for damages to cover box office sales, DVD and Blu-ray sales, movie rentals and subscription sales as well as the original filming budget.

Tom Cruise at the US premiere of 'Ghost Protocol' in Dec. 2011. Credit: Getty Images

According to ET the court documents, filed on December 20, 2013, screenwriter Timothy Patrick McLanahan alleges that 'he came up with the original idea for Cruise's 2011 action film, which he claims was based on a script called Head On that he allegedly wrote in 1998.'

McLanahan states that his 'Head On' screenplay was submitted to the US Copyright Office and "received a copyright certificate protecting its material and author from unauthorised use."

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Further, when his script was first rejected by William Morris Agency (a talent and literacy agency in the US), he "shopped the script around the world ... including [to] Tom Cruise's Rick Nicita, top agent with Creative Artist Agency."

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In the court docs, McLanahan alleged, "I immediately recognised that the scripts for this movie had been illegally written and produced from Head On's 1998 copyright."

There's no word yet on an official response from the parties named in the lawsuit, but you can imagine Mr. Cruise is unlikely to go down without a fight.

The way the writer came to the $1 billion amount is he added up ticket sales ($694,710,000), DVD and blue ray sales ($144.5 million), and movie rentals and subscription sales and budget ($145 million), according to the site.