disturbia

STV · 09/08/08 07:50PM

To Catch a Thief: When you're done parsing the genetic heritage of Dane Cook's slightly doppelgangy new film, we've got another, bigger provenance for you to deduce: Steven Spielberg is one of several defendants named in a new lawsuit accusing the creators of the 2006 hit Disturbia of stealing the idea from Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window. Of course, they pretty much did; the Shia LaBeouf voyeurism thriller tied up a two-quadrant crowd-pleaser with a black ribbon of 21st-century paranoia, all on the way to grossing nearly $80 million domestically. The estate of Window source author Cornell Woolrich finally Netflixed the film over the weekend, it appears, alleging both copyright infringement and breach of contract in a suit filed today in New York. "What the defendants have been unwilling to do openly, legitimately and legally, (they) have done surreptitiously, by their back-door use of the Rear Window story without paying compensation," the suit claims, also citing DreamWorks, Viacom and Universal among the offending parties. And here you thought Fox took its sweet time torching Warner Bros. over Watchmen. Expect a settlement by 2014, probably around the time that DreamWorks/Reliance deal closes. [Reuters]