Hasta La Creative!

According to The Wall Street Journal, Woody Allen filed a lawsuit Monday seeking more than $10 million from clothier American Apparel Inc. over unauthorized billboard and online advertisements featuring the actor and director dressed as a rabbi.

image courtesy of Curbed

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, alleges the Los Angeles clothing maker and retailer, without his permission, put up billboards in New York and in Hollywood, Calif., in May 2007 that featured an image of Mr. Allen, who is Jewish, dressed as a rabbi from one of his films.

The images also were displayed in advertising on American Apparel’s Web site and in sponsored advertisements on other Web sites, the complaint said.

The complaint said the unlawful use of Allen’s image for commercial advertising was “especially egregious and damaging because Allen does not commercially endorse any products in the United States of America.”