What Happens After Someone Else Makes Your Movie?

It’s a special kind of heartbreak when you come up with a great idea for a story, incubate it in your mind, write it down, polish it, and convince yourself it’s worthy of a Hollywood movie, then …you see a trailer for that movie. This isn’t about plagiarism, but about convergent ideas. You can’t sue for plagiarism if you’ve never pitched the script or published the story. Often it’s not the exact story, but close enough so that you can give up on the idea of a movie being produced, at least anytime soon. Just ask Liz Smith, who in 1997 imagined a story about a rich young man who falls involve with a poor woman while both are traveling on the Titanic. Inverse has the stories of five screenwriters who were crestfallen when they found out their stories had been beaten to the punch, and how they coped with the disappointment afterward. -via Digg
 

Source: neatorama