Window Pain

File this one under not a surprise...

E! Online's Natalie Finn

...The estate of the man who owned the rights to Rear Window has sued Disturbia producer Steven Spielberg, claiming that the 2007 teen thriller ripped off the 1954 Alfred Hitchcock classic and the short story upon which it was based.

With a $20 million budget, Disturbia was considered a modest hit last year, taking in $80.2 million at the U.S. box office. None of which was shared with the estate of the late Sheldon Abend who bought the rights to Cornell Woolrich's short story It Had to Be Murder after the author died in 1968, according to the lawsuit.

The original tale of neighborly voyeurism was paid tons of lip service, however.

Shia LaBeouf, who played the James Stewart character, er, homebound teen who suspects his neighbor is a murderer, said last year that comparing Disturbia to Rear Window was like comparing The Cincinnati Kid (brooding hottie plays poker) to The Hustler (brooding hottie plays pool).

"There are similar storylines, similar plot lines, similar elements," he told a wire reporter in April 2007, "but it's not the same movie by any means."

Director D.J. Caruso, meanwhile, called Rear Window merely a jumping-off point for his own story. And it was—literally. The film was shot on the same Paramount soundstage where Hitchcock shot his Oscar-nominated classic.

"Obviously, Rear Window was a big inspiration,'' Caruso told the Los Angeles Daily News last year. "I embraced it instead of running away from it. But I didn't want it to be a remake because that would be silly. You can't remake Rear Window." [It was though in 1998 as a TV flick]

Not without sharing the spoils, at least.

Reps for Spielberg and fellow defendants DreamWorks Pictures and Paramount said that they do not comment on pending litigation. Abend's estate is seeking unspecified damages.

The article makes the point that the critics mentioned RW a lot when reviewing Disturbia...



While the lawsuit has a valid claim--I question the timing--It took them this long to file...Why? When even cast and crew knew the teen thriller's roots as it was being mde....