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DreamWorks Sued Over Disturbia

According to a lawsuit filed in Manhattan federal court, DreamWorks' 2007 thriller Disturbia is a bit too similar to Alfred Hitchcock's classic, 1954-released Rear Window.

In the suit, Sheldon Abend Revocable Trust, which owns the rights to the short story Murder From a Fixed Viewpoint, claims that Hitchcock legally obtained the rights to turn the story into the film and that DreamWorks did not do the same when making their movie. The suit alleges that Disturbia and Rear Window are generated from the same source story. Both are murder mysteries solved by a man who witnesses things by watching from his window. The amount of the compensation that SART is seeking hasn't been revealed. DreamWorks' Steven Spielberg has been named as a defendant in the case, but declined to comment. DreamWorks as a whole also declined to comment.

—The ARTISTdirect Staff
09.10.08