MovieChat Forums > Method (2004) Discussion > This movie's script was stolen.

This movie's script was stolen.

posted 16 years ago by sean_bowmister
6 replies | jump to latest

This script was originally writen in 1991, by a woman by the name of Kathleen Smith. I hold in my hands now the original script, and it's thumbnail is as follows:

Brad Taylor, respected method actor, accepts the lead role in a film about a notorious serial killer. Already well-known for his intense emotional involvement in every role he has ever played, Brad becomes more and more obsessed with the part he is playing until his own personality changes... with tragic results.

This movie was blatantly stolen, and the only thing changed was the sex of the main character. Nowhere in the entire script of the new movie, which is almost directly the same, does it mention Kathleen Smith. Expect to hear of legal action soon.

[–] GuyYouWishYouWere 16 years ago

Well....pretty much everything is stolen because everything has already been done.

This is also similair to THE BRIGHTON STRANGLER, way back to the days of black and white.

"Wether you think you can or you think you can't - you're right"

[–] mbs 16 years ago

caught this movie on tv this afternoon and honestly it reminded me of an old movie called A DOUBLE LIFE more then anything else..

the plot is similar enough to A DOUBLE LIFE

A Double Life with Ronald Coleman as a very very intese method actor who's known for pissing off a lot of his co-stars and directors with his intensity. He mounts a stage production of Shakespeare's Othello and the character's intense jealousy and the character's strangling of the woman at the end of the play get the better of him as he becomes more and more jealous over his ex-wife (who's in the play with him as the murdered lover)and her relationship with the play's director. He then goes about killing people by stangling them muttering the same dialog he uses while killing his wife in the play right before he kills them. Of course in the daytime when he is sober (i should mention he's pretty hammered when he's actually doing the killings) he keeps wondering where he was and when he hears about the murders thinking--oh sweet lord, what have i done? its similar only of course in this case the actor is actually the killer, but you watch him as he goes nuts.

it was a pretty famous movie in its day---Coleman actually won best actor at the oscars that year for his role. it pops up on TCM from time to time.

t

[–] billysoffhismeds 16 years ago

So, maybe this Kathleen Smith person stole the idea for her script from Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin!

See how silly this is? Any similarity can be connected to another movie and so on. The fact is that the lead character in Method was a woman, not a man. And the movie "Belle" was a fictional account based on the story of a real person "Belle Gunness" who was a Norwegian woman who emigrated to the States and was said to have been responsible for the murder of two husbands, several children and suitors.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belle_Gunness

Now, if you can quote scenes and passages of scripted dialogue that were identical - you might have a case.

[–] mannylage 16 years ago

haha, this already has been done a million different times. everyone's heard this story before, come on now...

[–] ReasonlsOutToLunch 15 years ago

Well, who ever stole it should have stole a better script.

[–] anewkirk-2 14 years ago

Come on dude. You saying that this movie was stolen fro another script is like saying someone stole the color RED from someone else only it was called BLUE then.

There is NOTHING NEW under the freaking sun. In Art, in Movies, in Literature is politics in every single thing on earth. People borrow little things from this and that. they are motivated by certain things or inspired by things and use bits and pieces from other works of art to make them their own into something new.

Just because they use the premise of "the lead role being a method actor" does not make this a rip off of any other movie that has a lead actor who is a Method actor that turns into a killer.

Been there and seen if a freaking million times. It's the Detective who in order to go inside the head of the serial killer becomes crazed himself and turns into a killer himself.

It's been done a million times and in a million different ways.

Sorry but it just doesn't make sense that this is a RIP OFF of anything else anymore than any other work or art or song or book.