Lawsuit: Disturbia a “Rip-off”

Posted by dominie in Events, Films, News on September 9th, 2008

A lawsuit has been filed against Disturbia, the teen-thriller starring Shia LaBeouf, which debuted at the top with $23 million in 2007.  According to The Hollywood Reporter, the lawsuit filed Monday in Manahattan federal court contends that DreamWorks’ Disturbia is a “rip-off” of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1953 Rear Window.

Sheldon Abend Revocable Trust, which owns the rights to Cornell Woolrich’s short story “Murder From a Fixed Viewpoint,” claims DreamWorks should have followed in Hitchcock’s actions in legally acquiring the rights to creating a big-screen adaptation of the thriller. Named defendents, Viacom, NBC Universal, and Steven Spielberg, have not commented.

Key points from the lawsuit:

• Disturbia and Rear Window are “essentially the same” stories: both are murder mysteries solved by a man peering from his window and witnessing strange behavior by a neighbor.

• The characters are similar.

• The plots unfold basically the same way.