June 05, 2007
Staff Reporter
Universal Studios stole Rebecca Eckler's baby!
Or at least her second baby, the Canadian lifestyles columnist's first book.
The Calgary-based writer is accusing the filmmakers behind the comedy hit Knocked Up of stealing the premise from her book, Knocked Up: Confessions of a Hip Mother-to-be.
Eckler has filed a lawsuit against writer/director Judd Apatow and Universal Studios.
Eckler's book is about her experience as an up-and-coming journalist/socialite who accidentally gets pregnant at her engagement party. It was released in 2004 in Canada, and one year later in the States.
The movie opened to the tune of nearly $30 million (U.S.) last weekend. It's about an up-and-coming entertainment journalist who gets a promotion, parties a little too hard that night, and gets pregnant by a less-than-desirable father.
"Everywhere I go, people ask if it's based on my book. Just yesterday I was at a child's birthday party and three (people) asked if they'd made a movie of my book," Eckler said.
And to the throngs of anti-Eckler bloggers speculating she's just in it for a cash grab, she said that's not the case.
"We started this legal action about a year ago, before this movie became a hit," Eckler said.
"I have a friend in Los Angeles who sent me the cover of their screenplay, which was a martini glass with a soother around the stem, which is exactly the same illustration as (the book). Even the words `Knocked Up' are in different colours."
Eckler and her lawyer sent a letter to the studio last summer after production began, and were told they weren't planning to use the martini glass or lettering on the final cut.
But this is just one of the many similarities Eckler points out between her story and the one starring Katherine Heigl, from Grey's Anatomy, and Seth Rogen, of The 40-Year-Old Virgin fame.
"I saw the movie months ago at an Austin film festival," she said. "From the beginning I just thought, `I wrote about this in my book.' There's this scene when she's really pregnant and she goes to a bar and feels really uncomfortable. I wrote the same scene (but I was) at a film festival party."
In another similarity, Heigl's character, Alison Scott, is guided through the pregnancy by her sister, Debbie, a comical mother of two. In the book, Eckler goes to her best friend, Ronnie, for advice, who also has screaming children.
Eckler points to the fact that Rogen's character, Ben Stone, is Jewish and Canadian. So is her fiancé.
Although the Globe and Mail columnist admits there will be challenges proving her experiences are unique, she says she has every right to fight for what she believes.
Apatow, Universal Studios and NBC Universal Inc. are all named in the copyright infringement suit, which was filed Jan. 3 in a Los Angeles court.
Donald Gordon and Louis Petrich, who represent all three, did not respond to interview requests yesterday.
