Steven Spielberg and his studio DreamWorks are being sued for allegedly stealing the premise of classic 1954 suspense film Rear Window, originally directed by Alfred Hitchcock, for last year's Disturbia.

The lawsuit comes from a trust owning the rights to the 1942 Cornell Woolrich short story, 'Murder from a Fixed Viewpoint'. Unlike Hitchcock's film, the trust claims that DreamWorks failed to obtain the motion picture rights for the adaptation. "What the defendants have been unwilling to do openly, legitimately and legally, (they) have done surreptitiously, by their back-door use of the Rear Window story without paying compensation," the lawsuit states.

The two films feature a protagonist who suspects a murder upon observing the neighbouring building. The legal documents contend that key aspects of the films, including their plot, characterisation and style, are indivisable.

Disturbia starred the emerging Shia LaBeouf in the leadng role and was a reasonable box-office success, taking $80m (£45.5 million) in the US, eclipsing its relatively meagre $20m budget. Upon the release, Film4's critic Anton Bitel described it as an 'upgrade of Rear Window for the Internet Generation'.

Spielberg and DreamWorks have declined to comment on the proceedings.

Story: David Katz