Acclaimed Richmond writer Dean King is suing California and British film companies for $5 million, claiming a movie in production that stars Russell Crowe is a rip-off of his 2004 book “Skeletons on the Zahara. A True Story of Survival.”

King is suing IM Global of Los Angeles, Independent Film Company of London and its chief executive officer Luc Roeg, according to the Courthouse News Service.

The firms are working on a film titled “In Sand and Blood” that is based on King’s book that explores the plight of the crew of the cargo ship Commerce that wrecked off the coast of Africa in 1815. Survivors were sold into slavery, beaten and starved.

According to the Courthouse News Service, Roeg promised King $250,000 for rights to his book in 2008 if the firm exercised an option for it. Also on the table were 5 percent of the producer’s profits and $50,000 if a U.S. firm co-financed the production.

Roeg hired screenwriter Ronan Bennett, whose projects have included “Public Enemies” starring Johnny Depp, to work with the King material. But King’s deal expired in 2012, the news service says.

Variety wrote in September that: “The project has been in development since 2010 with ‘Public Enemies’ scribe Ronan Bennett writing a script, based on Dean King’s nonfiction book ‘Skeletons on the Zahara: A True Story of Survival.’”

King’s situation is not the first controversy over purloining the work of Richmond authors.

In 1999, author David Robbins published “War of the Rats,” a story of a Soviet sniper hero during the turning-point battle of Stalingrad in World War II.

A very similar tale emerged in 2001 as the film “Enemy at the Gates,” starring Jude Law, Rachel Weisz and Ed Harris.

Russell Crowe is not a defendant in the King lawsuit.