A B.C. restaurateur has given James Cameron and 20th Century Fox until midnight Thursday to pony up $100 million, or be sued for allegedly using his copyrighted concepts and characters in the hit blockbuster Avatar.

Bellagio Café owner Emil Malak claims he sent the script and character designs for a science fiction project called Terra Incognita to Cameron in 2002 while the Titanic director's Dark Angel TV series was filming in Vancouver.

Like Avatar, the story follows an astronaut who travels to another world being mined by humans, falls in love with an alien leader's daughter, and sacrifices his life to save the planet.

"There are 42 similar incidents in the story," Malak told ctvbc.ca. "I have nothing against James Cameron. He's a genius, and I'm glad he took my vision and made it into a movie."

Another purported similarity is that the females in Malak's story were to wear virtually no clothing, in order to attract male viewers. The lead female alien of Avatar, Neytiri, often appears on screen barely clothed.

Characters inhabiting genetically engineered alien "avatars," a major plot device in Cameron's film, are not featured in Terra Incognita.

Malak filed a copyright suit in B.C. Supreme Court two years ago, but it was eventually dropped. He launched it again on March 1 in the Federal Court of Canada.

Prior to his first claim, Malak says he was invited to the 20th Century Fox studio to meet with studio representatives and Avatar producer John Landau.

"They said, ‘We don't want to talk about similarities. James Cameron wrote his in 1996, you lose.'"

Malak claims he started working on his story in 1997, and spent thousands working with a screenwriter and a graphic artist to develop the concept.

The 60-year-old says the studio's case hinges on a script treatment Cameron claims he wrote a year earlier -- but Malek says he hasn't been allowed to take a computer analyst to examine the document and determine its authenticity.

"They've been jerking me for 18 months, saying next week, next month," Malek said. "If they actually produce the file, I'll book a ticket and take a shuttle and I'll live on the Avatar planet."

He filed a statement of claim on March 1, but has been told by Cameron's lawyer that the suit hasn't been served to him yet.

"I got an email that said, ‘Very sorry, we cannot get a hold of James Cameron because he's in a submarine in New Zealand,'" Malak said. "It's bulls***."

Malak says his phone has been ringing off the hook with calls from U.S. news organizations, including CNN, but he has so far refused their interviews to avoid looking like an opportunist.

He also says he'd be willing to negotiate on his $100 million ultimatum.

"I don't have an ego. Do I want to spend years fighting them? Not really. But if it comes to it, I will."

None of the allegations in Malak's statement of claim have been proven in court.

A lawyer for Norton Rose Canada LLP in Toronto, the firm representing 20th Century Fox, issued a statement Friday dismissing the allegations.

"The claim by Malak is without merit and will be vigorously defended," Brian Gray said.