Feathers will fly in a multi-million pound court battle over who hatched the plot for a Hollywood blockbuster starring animated chickens.

Sussex-based author Alan Davidson is set to take on the might of Steven Spielberg's DreamWorks studio.

He claims he, rather than Peter Lord and Nick Park, who created the Oscar-winning Wallace and Gromit short films, wrote the story for big-screen hit Chicken Run.

DreamWorks and Mr Lord's Aardman Animations studio are the principal defendants in a copyright action lodged by Mr Davidson.

Court papers served yesterday claim Mr Davidson's 1995 book Escape From Cold Ditch was "bodily appropriated" for the film, released five years later.

Davidson is also initiating legal action in the United States against DreamWorks, claiming millions in damages over a film that has taken almost £135 million at cinemas worldwide.

Mr Davidson, of Coleman's Hatch, Hartfield, near Crowborough, refused to comment today but a family spokesman said: "This is a matter of principle and honesty."

The papers cite a number of "striking" similarities between his book and the Hollywood film.

Both stories have as their protagonist a rebellious female chicken who leads Second World War-style escapes across fields and barbed wire.

The claim states: "Escape and Chicken Run are both about a group of chickens that plan and, with the aid of an outsider chicken, execute a mass escape from a chicken farm in the tradition of and with references to Second World War PoW escape stories.

"Each story is also a satire on inhumane farming and human greed."

The papers, lodged at Lewes County Court, continue: "They also share numerous story events and sequences and similar dialogue.

"These and other similarities confirm the defendants have bodily appropriated Davidson's entire novel and translated it to the screen."

The legal bid follows three years of dialogue between his agent, Susan Schulman, and DreamWorks.

A spokesman for Aardman said yesterday: "We deny there is any basis whatsoever for Mr Davidson's claim and we intend to defend the litigation."