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Whose idea is it, anyway? In what furious TriStar executives are calling an attempted robbery and Disney brass are chalking up to coincidence, both studios are working on romantic comedies about really unrequited love. In the TriStar version, a woman falls in love with a dead man. In the Disney version, a woman falls in love with a guy who's comatose. TriStar filed suit in August in Los Angeles, asking a U.S. district judge to bar Disney from releasing its movie, While You Were Sleeping, until after TriStar brings out its own film, Mrs. Winterbourne. The case could go to trial by early next year, but neither studio is waiting to see what the court decides. Disney has already won the first round; a judge recently threw out a request that Disney not begin filming its coma flick. Production of Sleeping- which stars Speed's Sandra Bullock as a woman who is mistaken for the fiancee of a man (Peter Gallagher) who slipped into a coma after being mugged- started last month in Chicago. The script was cowritten by Dan Sullivan, who got the idea after his writing partner, Fred Lebow, complained that he couldn't get a date even ''if the girl was brain-dead.'' Meanwhile, producer Dale Pollock says he's days away from signing TV talk- show princess Ricki Lake as the lead for the TriStar production, which is set to start shooting in the spring. Mrs. Winterbourne is based on a Cornell Woolrich novella that has already served as the basis for two movies: No Man of Her Own, a 1950 Paramount weeper starring Barbara Stanwyck, and the 1982 French drama I Married a Shadow. Although a source who has read both scripts says the two are quite different, Pollock argues that there are so many similarities in characters, relationships, and major plot points that he ''cannot accept that it's a coincidence.'' He adds, ''I spent a great deal of time, money, and energy obtaining the rights to a clearly copyrighted work, and my feeling is that they stole it.'' Publicists for both TriStar and Disney refused to comment.


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Posted Nov 11, 1994 | Published in issue #248 Nov 11, 1994 | Order Article Reprints