When is it playful homage and when it is copyright infringement? The basis of a new lawsuit alleges that Steven Spielberg and Dreamworks lifted the plot, characters and protagonist for the studio’s 2007 hit, Disturbia, from the 1954 Alfred Hitchcock classic Rear Window. Note that Spielberg personally did not work as a director or producer on this production. More specifically, the lawsuit claims that Dreamworks should have sought the rights to the short story, “Murder From a Fixed Viewpoint,” the source material from which the Hitchcock film was adapted.
“In the Disturbia film the defendants purposefully employed immaterial variations or transparent rephrasing to produce essentially the same story as the Rear [...]

We’re pretty sure some type of “clarification” will be sent out shortly regarding the following statement from Michael Caine, but for now, it’s the first confirmation from someone involved in the Batman franchise about new villains and casting choices. And it’s HUGE. The ubiquitous rumors about Johnny Depp as The Riddler and Philip Seymour Hoffman as The Penguin will undoubtedly escalate after this. Here’s what Caine told MTV’s Splash Page…
“I was with [a Warner Bros.] executive and I said, ‘Are we going to make [a sequel to The Dark Knight]?’ They said yeah. I said, ‘How the hell are we going to top Heath? And he says ‘I’ll tell you [...]

Tom Cruise will produce and possibly star in an adaptation of Douglas Preston’s non-fiction bestseller, The Monster of Florence, for his studio United Artists. When Preston relocated his family to Italy in 2000, he soon became aware of a nearby murder committed years ago by the region’s serial killer, the Monster of Florence. Intrigued, he teamed up with a local obsessive investigative journalist to track him down. This culminated in the duo falling under the suspicion of authorities, with the journalist ultimately being thrown behind bars and pegged for a short time as the “Monster.”
You may recall seeing these highly engrossing events reported on Dateline NBC. Clearly, there are parallels [...]

Here we go. Days ago, rumors hit that Russell Crowe was set to play Watson to Robert Downey Jr.’s Sherlock Holmes. To which the Internet huffed, “He’s not roundy enough!” And the Internet was right, but not quite. Not a first. According to those Palin-loathing dudes at Latino Review, Crowe is in talks to play Moriarty, Holmes creepy-smart arch-nemesis. You’ll recall that director Guy Ritchie only pffft’d Crowe for the aforementioned sidekick role, which still hasn’t been cast. LR report that Gerard Butler was offered the part, but didn’t bite. Not roundy enough?
Coming Soon report that prolific British actor, Mark Strong (Body of Lies, Rocknrolla, Sunshine) has signed on, and [...]

UPDATE: The trades are reporting that Gene Stupnitsky and Lee Eisenberg (co-exec producers/writers on NBC’s The Office) have officially been hired by Columbia Pictures/Sony to pen the script for Ghostbusters 3. The script will reportedly bring together the original cast including Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis, Bill Murray and Ernie Hudson, Slimer?, though none of the actors have officially signed to reprise their roles. The Hollywood Reporter says that Ghostbusters I and II director Ivan Reitman is “aware and involved” in the project’s development. The “next-gen” storyline has also been confirmed, though no specifics were offered. Read below for further info on this aspect.
The general impression based on years of tentative [...]

Los Angeles federal judge Gary Allen Feess has set a January 6th 2009 trial date for 20th Century Fox’s Watchmen lawsuit against Warner Bros.  Discovery and deposition proceedings will take place for the rest of the year. This is some what good news for Watchmen fans, as it was initially rumored that the court trial would take place much later, possibly delaying the release of the film until 2010. Warner Bros has yet to postpone the announced March 6th 2009 release date.

Last week, I screened 20 minutes of clips of scenes from David Fincher’s The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. In our first impression article, I expressed my concern and disappointment over the footage shown, partly because I felt some of the short scenes dragged. Note: I haven’t seen the entire film - I want to be clear on this…, I only screened 20 minutes of selected scenes. It was good but not great. I wasn’t alone, FirstShowing and Jeff Wells also posted articles about the disappointing buzz the footage received at the festival.
In my blog posting, I told you about the rumors of Paramount’s vicious fight with Fincher behind the [...]

The latest Watchmen legal update comes via The New York Times:
“The report also outlined conflicting requests for a trial date: as early as next June, if Fox has its way, or April, if Warner prevails.”
A count injunction and a June start date could possibly delay the release of Watchmen until 2010. Even the April start date that Warner Bros is pushing for would probably delay the film’s release until Summer 2009 at earliest. And if Fox wins the court case, who knows if we’ll ever see the film at all (yeah, this is rather unlikely, but Fox’s official stance on the matter is to prevent the film from being released [...]

Questionable Internet/playground slang alert: A Bollywood family film entitled Hari Puttar: A Comedy of Terrors is the target of a Warner Bros. lawsuit. The point of contention lies in the title’s similarity to the studio’s multi-billion Harry Potter franchise. Sillier still, Hari Puttar is described online as a blatant Home Alone knockoff. So the robber on the left is Bollywood’s version of Joe Pesci? Serious algebra. As you’d expect, Puttar’s producers and crew are claiming innocence…
“Hari is a very common Indian name and Puttar stands for son in English,” the film’s music director Aadesh Shrivastav said at the music release of the film earlier.
This is true, and I don’t [...]

Update: No loving bitch slaps were ultimately exchanged. We can all sleep soundly. However, Devin did make an LOLCats: The Movie joke on air. FYI: “Andrew Stanton from Pixar is directing.”
Peter leaves for an epic film festival triathlon and suddenly Slashfilm is vulnerable to attack? No way, dudes. Our readers will easily guess who the first sneaky culprit is. Yep, one Devin Faraci from Chud.com, known here as the guy who labeled Wall-E a would-be date rapist on the /Filmcast. Today, Devin threatened via Twitter to “lovingly bitchslap” Slashfilm (more specifically: me) this evening on G4’s magnificent Attack of the Show.
The reason? Well, Faraci has quickly anointed himself as [...]

The balloon of blind faith gifted the Coen Brothers after No Country For Old Men (and many other great films) by critics and bloggers is beginning to sputter across the Netz. The bros’ new CIA kneeslapper Burn After Reading starring George Clooney and Brad Pitt is receiving decidely mixed early word-of-mouth and reviews from the Venice Film Fest.
“Everything here, from the thesps’ heavy mugging to the uncustomarily overbearing score by Carter Burwell and the artificially augmented vulgarities in the dialogue, has been dialed up to an almost grotesquely exaggerated extent, making for a film that feels misjudged. …Nothing about the project’s execution inspires the feeling that this was ever intended [...]

Another morning on Slashfilm, another Kid Icarus in Hollywood. Previously, Robert Downey Jr. used the web to hawk an Iron loogie at The Dark Knight and DC Comics, and now Mark Wahlberg—who enjoys lighting cigarettes in the rain—says he’d pummel The Caped Crusader. Put down the Pop Tarts and take a deep breath, fanboys.
“I’m not talking about financial box office, I’m talking about one-on-one with these [puts up fists],” Wahlberg squealed to MTV while flexing in front of a mirror.
We interrupt this quote to bring you a witty message from ODB. And we’re back. Moreover, Wahlberg offered a direct and slightly ‘mo challenge to Bruce Wayne…
“Take off the suit and [...]

Okay, let’s make this quick because I’m logging off, going outside and sitting quietly under a tree for the rest of eternity. Writer Aaron Sorkin (Charlie Wilson’s War, Studio 60) has joined Facebook. More importantly, he’s created a Facebook group where it’s announced he’s penning Facebook: The Movie (our title) for mega-producer Scott Rudin (NCFOM, TWBB)…
“I’ve just agreed to write a movie for Sony and producer Scott Rudin about how Facebook was invented. I figured a good first step in my preparation would be finding out what Facebook is, so I’ve started this page. (Actually it was started by my researcher, Ian Reichbach, because my grandmother has more Internet savvy [...]

The New York Times has an extensive analysis of 20th Century Fox’s lawsuit with Warner Bros over the rights to Watchmen. Here is an excerpt which I think explains the situation better than anyone else:“On its face, turnaround is a contractual mechanism that allows a studio to release its interest in a dormant film project, while recovering costs, plus interest, from any rival that eventually adopts the project. But turnaround is a stacked deck. The turnaround clauses in a typical contract are also insurance for studio executives who do not want to be humiliated by a competitor who makes a hit out of their castoffs. That trick turns on a [...]

It’s official. Slashfilm is in the midst of a 2008 Vin Diesel dunkirk. Not only did the muscled actor inexplicably drop the “Riddick is back, no matter what! Two films!” bomb yesterday, there’s his new Fast and Furious trailer. And last night on a superb /Filmcast, we examined the actor’s radioactive connection to Osama bin Laden. This weekend sees the (non?)opening of Diesel’s long-delayed sci-fi actioner Babylon A.D. Don’t click the button on Fandango just yet! The director, Mathieu Kassovitz, says the movie sucks…
“I should have chosen a studio that has guts,” Kassovitz told AMC. “Fox was just trying to get a PG-13 movie. I’m ready to go to war [...]