More than 36 years after its execution, Emeritus Psychology Prof. Philip Zimbardo’s infamous Prison Experiment has received renewed media attention. The publicity stems from a recently settled legal battle between two film production companies over plans for a movie based on the experiment. As of Jan. 16, Maverick Films is allowed to continue with its movie plans about the psychology experiment that studied the use and abuse of power in humans.

Maverick Films, co-founded by Madonna, sued Inferno Distribution in October 2006 for unfairly gaining access to confidential information about the Prison Experiment movie that Maverick was making. In December 2006, Inferno countersued Maverick, alleging that Maverick was merely making an English-language version of “Das Experiment,” a German movie that examines the psychological effects of authority and prison.

According to Zimbardo, however, “Das Experiment” is an inaccurate portrayal of the actual Stanford Prison Experiment.

“‘Das [Experiment]’ is an aberration, a total exploitation of sex and violence that is completely unlike the truth of the Prison Experiment,” Zimbardo said. “It began by implying that it was an actual replication of the Prison Experiment, but nothing remotely like the physical abuse and rape scenes occurred in our study.”

The Maverick movie will attempt to tell the real story of Zimbardo’s 1971 study, which examined how good people can be corrupted in bad situations. Student volunteers were assigned roles of mock prison guards and prisoners, but the intensity that they displayed in their respective roles forced Zimbardo to end the experiment prematurely.

“The idea was to understand the influence that institutions, like prisons, and other social situations can have in undermining and transforming individuals under certain conditions,” he said. “When embedded in new and unfamiliar settings, our habitual ways of thinking, feeling and acting no longer function to sustain the moral compass that has guided us reliably in the past.”

Christopher McQuarrie, who won an Oscar for his script of “The Usual Suspects,” is co-writer and director of the film. Icon Entertainment has acquired international sales rights for the movie, which will feature Ryan Phillippe, Kieran Culkin, Paul Dano, Jesse Eisenberg, Charlie Hunnam, Ben McKenzie and Channing Tatum.

Though actors have been chosen and Maverick now has legal permission to make the feature-length movie based on the experiment, the film has to jump through yet another hoop, as the writer’s strike has indefinitely halted production.