The author of a 1999 novel titled Gravity about a disaster in space is suing the makers of the Oscar-winning film which shares its name, reports Deadline.

Alfonso Cuarón's extraterrestrial drama won seven prizes at the Academy awards in March, including best director for its lead architect. Prolific American writer Tess Gerritsen, whose novel is also about a female astronaut trapped in space, now wants what she believes is her cut.

Deadline reports Gerritsen is asking for $10m plus damages from studio Warner Bros, which backed the $716m box-office smash. She also wants a "based on the book by Tess Gerritsen" credit.

The industry blog suggests Gerritsen previously distanced her novel from Cuarón's film, and some plot details do appear to differ. The central character, according to the author's own website, is a brilliant research physician sent to the international space station in order to study living beings in space.

"Once aboard the space station … things start to go terribly wrong," reads a synopsis. "A culture of single-celled organisms known as Archaeons, gathered from the deep sea, is to be monitored in the microgravity of space. The true and lethal nature of this experiment has not been revealed to Nasa. In space, the cells rapidly multiply and soon begin to infect the crew – with agonising and deadly results."

Warner offshoot New Line is said to have optioned Gerritsen's book in 1999, and the author says details she was asked to add during an earlier incarnation of the film adaptation made it into Cuarón's movie. "To assist in the development of the Gerritsen Gravity Project, Gerritsen wrote and delivered additional material that constituted a modified version of a portion of the Book," reads her lawsuit. "The additional material written by Gerritsen included scenes of satellite debris colliding with the International Space Station ("ISS"), the destruction of the ISS, and the surviving female medical doctor/astronaut left drifting in her space suit, alone and untethered, seeking the means to return to Earth."

Cuarón and Warner Bros have yet to make a public comment on Gerritsen's suit.