In the film business "parallel development" is nothing new. There are many ideas and many people trying to come up with ideas, so the thought that two people can have the same idea shouldn't surprise anybody. This is precisely why if you are a budding screenwriter (which I am), you are often asked to sign a release form (which I do) stating that if you submit your material to a production company, you are doing so with the knowledge that they are getting and developing ideas that might be similar to yours.

But what happens if you make a film that comes out, plays some festivals, gets some hype, and then after all the dust has cleared... you hear about a film that was made that is quite similar to yours? To make matters worse, it has gone on to great success and brought lots of money to all those involved?

Well in a story from our friends over at Reel.Panel2panel.com, that may have been what happened to writer/filmmaker Greg Arce.

Making this all the more interesting, is that he claims that one of the most original horror movies of the 21st Century, Saw, is actually based on his film Den

While the evidence presented in the story is clearly circumstantial, and MovieWeb is in no way insinuating that the creators of Saw stole Arce's idea, the story itself is quite interesting. Arce offers up his history of the events and even gives "seventeen similarities" between the films. While people claiming their work being stolen is nothing new, what makes this story really compelling is the fact that we're dealing with two different films (not merely ideas on paper) that even have similar artwork.

to read Steve Anderson's enlightening story!

Saw was released October 29th, 2004 and stars Leigh Whannell, Cary Elwes, Danny Glover, Ken Leung, Dina Meyer, Mike Butters, Paul Gutrecht, Michael Emerson. The film is directed by James Wan.