It's A Wonderful Life sequel facing legal threat

A new film may not get the go-ahead after dispute with Paramount Studios

Family man: James Stewart in 'It's a Wonderful Life' (AP)

Bob Farnsworth's proposed sequel to the classic 1946 Christmas film It's A Wonderful Life is facing a threat of legal action from Paramount Studios.

Plans for the sequel were announced earlier this week but now Paramount has argued that the project cannot progress without "necesssary rights" that they own.

"We will take to take all appropriate steps to protect those rights," a spokesperson from the studios has said.

In the original film, directed by Frank Capra, George Bailey is a troubled family man left contemplating suicide on Christmas Eve after deciding that his loved ones would be better off without him.

His family's prayers encourage guardian angel Clarence Odbody to show Bailey, played by James Stewart, how much worse life would have been for others had he never been born.

Hummingbird Productions revealed on Monday that a follow-up film centred on the story of Bailey's mean grandson was to be co-created with Star Partners.

Farnsworth, writer of It's A Wonderful Life: The Rest Of The Story, told The Hollywood Reporter that the film rights are already in the public domain as the original's copyright license has run out.

It is, however, believed that Paramount has managed the rights for the past 14 years.

The second installment's screenplay has been co-written with Martha Bolton, with Farnsworth aiming for a December 2015 release.

But Frank Capra's son, Tom, has insisted that his father would have called the plans "ludicrous", had he still been alive.

"Why would you even attempt to make a sequel to such a classic film?" he told the Associated Press.