One person who does not find the film Knocked Up entertaining is Canadian journalist Rebecca Eckler. In 2004, the writer published her autobiographical Knocked Up: Confessions of a Hip Mother-to-be. In addition to the similarity of titles, both the book and film are about women who find themselves pregnant following drunken encounters with Canadian Jewish guys.
Judd Apatow, writer-director of the film, Knocked Up, stated through a lawyer, “Anyone who reads the book and sees the movie will instantly know that they are two very different stories about a common experience. The book is about a woman who gets pregnant by the fiance that she loves on the night of her engagement party. The film is a very different story; the film is about a one-night stand between a pot smoking slacker and an ambitious young woman that leads to a pregnancy and their attempts to get to know each other.”
Eckler’s response: ” . . . when people ask, almost daily now, if ‘Knocked Up’ is based on my book, I simply say, ‘Ask Judd Apatow.’”
The plagiarism trial is set for March 2008.
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fil said
June 9 2007 @ 4:34 pm
Reading a little bit more into this shows an author that may have a minor gripe (the title) but really, Apatow is right; they share very little in common. Example, this author’s story is about getting pregnant with her fiance on the night they got engaged…not about strangers getting pregnant after getting boozed up and then deciding to make a go of it. The book seems focused on the mother-to-be where the movie’s sympathies seem to be with the slacker guy deciding to grow up a little. Couple that with the fact that “Knocked Up” is a fairly common slang for “getting pregnant” and I don’t think she is able to copyright that phrase. Sorry, no green for her. That said, look for Apatow and Co. being forced to settle out of court for an undisclosed amount just to get away from it all.