Steven Spielberg Accused of Stealing 'Disturbia' Plot

AP

The copyright infringement lawsuit also names Universal Pictures, Dreamworks and its parent company Viacom Inc., with Dreamworks founder Spielberg named as a defendant.

The 2007 thriller Disturbia, which earned an estimated $80 million at US theaters, stars Shia LaBeouf who spies on neighbors, including a man he believes is a serial killer.

The lawsuit claims that Spielberg's hit and Hitchcock’s classic, which starred Grace Kelly and James Stewart, have “essentially the same” story.

Both films are murder mysteries that begin with a man who becomes witness to a neighbor’s bizarre behavior after peering from his window.

The lawsuit claims Disturbia copied a short story penned by Cornell Woolrich in 1942 entitled Murder from a Fixed Viewpoint, which director Hitchcock and actor Stewart obtained the movie rights to in 1953.

According to the complaint, Disturbia has breached the rights of the Sheldon Abend Revocable Trust, the owner of the rights to Hitchcock’s movie, which the Spielberg film was based on.

Sheldon Abend, a Hollywood producer who did a remake of Rear Window for television, purchased the rights to the Hitchcock story in 1971.

Abend, who passed away in 2003, acquired the “exclusive right to adapt or copy” the story in 1991, the lawsuit declares.

Lawyers for Sheldon Abend Revocable Trust, which filed the lawsuit in New York last week, state that the Disturbia makers did not acquire the rights to the story prior to remaking the Hitchcock masterpiece.

A representative for Spielberg refused to comment, while spokespeople for NBC Universal and Viacom were not immediately available for a statement.