The 90-day deadline to serve the lawsuit doesn’t apply because the three accused companies are based in China and Singapore, the studios said on Dec. 24 in response to Judge Stanley Blumenfeld Jr.'s order to show cause. Courts don’t enforce the deadline in cases involving foreign defendants because they recognize timeliness is “often out of the plaintiff’s control,” according to the response.
The studios’ said they’d engaged specialists in Singapore and China and were informed service could take eight to 24 months.
The judge on Dec. 19 threatened to toss the lawsuit in the US District Court for the Central District of California because 90 days passed since it was filed. He gave the studios until Dec. 29 to respond, saying failure would be “construed as consent to dismissal without prejudice.”
Disney, Universal City Studios Productions LLP, Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc., and several other studios sued MiniMax, Shanghai Xiyu Jizhi Technology Co. Ltd., and Nanonoble Pte. Ltd. in September. The complaint alleged Minimax’s product Hailuo AI offers users images and videos that feature characters from the studios’ libraries, including Spider-Man, Darth Vader, and Shrek.
The studios are represented by Jenner & Block LLP.
The case is Disney Enters Inc. v. Minimax, C.D. Cal., No. 25-cv-08768, response filed 12/24/25.
To contact the reporter on this story:
To contact the editor responsible for this story: