<< there have been a number of times I've had an idea outlined, only to see something very similar end up appearing onscreen or on the book stands.

I hear ya.

About twenty years ago I had an idea for a movie comedy I called NUCLEAR FAMILY about a typical American family that picnics on a nuclear waste dump and then develops bizarre powers. I didn't tell a soul about it and started to work up a treatment.

A few weeks later I read in the trades that a studio had bought a comedy pitch called NUCLEAR FAMILY about a typical American family that picnics on a nuclear waste dump and then develops bizarre powers. It made me think twice whenever I hear some tale of somebody who claims they've been "ripped off."

A lot of this stuff is just out there floating around in the zeitgeist.