As I mentioned back when the trailer first came out, I really don’t have any enthusiasm for Adam Sandler’s next movie I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry. To me, the idea of two straight guys pretending to be a gay couple is not only unfunny but it has also been done many times before. I couldn’t give you any specific examples of course, at least not until I heard about a 2004 Australian movie called Strange Bedfellows. Apparently there are a lot of striking similarities between the two films; so much so that the Bedfellows director Dean Murphy and American distributor Screen Media Films may be considering legal action. The Aussie flick stars Paul Hogan and Michael Caton as two guys who pretend to be gay just so they can catch a tax break. And I think they might be firefighters too?

While it seems like we hear accusations of movie plagiarism almost every other week now, this case is pretty convincing, if only because Michael Caton claims to have given Rob Schneider a copy of the film a few years back when they worked together on The Animal. We all know Schneider is Sandler’s lapdog, and of course he has a bit role in I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry. But wait a minute, Sandler and Schneider didn’t write the film; that credit goes to Barry Fanaro (Men In Black II, Kingpin) and… Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor, the duo behind About Schmidt, Election and Sideways? I certainly didn’t expect to see their names involved. At any rate, check out the trailer for Strange Bedfellows and see what you think. In my opinion it actually looked like a funnier film just because it goes so overboard with the concept… something I think Adam Sandler wouldn’t be willing to do. Agree/disagree?

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