History reminds us that all the great artists steal. Just ask Michael Bay

Jesus—when it rains for DreamWorks, it pretty much fucking pours. The latest development surrounding its classically catastrophic The Island finds the studio (and its co-producer Warner Bros.) on the receiving end of a lawsuit in a New York court, where it will defend itself against charges that it ripped off/remade the 1979 Z-movie Parts: The Clonus Horror.

OK, so "defend" might not be the right word; The Reeler will go out on a limb and predict that this squabble will never see a courtroom. Of course, when you are talking about a work of such great aesthetic integrity as Clonus, one can never know:

Although he's been talking with lawyers, (co-producer/director Robert) Fiveson said he doesn't know what he wants from The Island filmmakers or its studio, DreamWorks. "I'm not in this to make money, frankly." However, he said, "I wouldn't mind if this thing went to a jury trial at all."

However, Variety reports that Fiveson and his co-producer Myrl Schriebman are in fact seeking unspecified damages as well as an injunction against The Island's continued release. Legal action has been something of a foregone conclusion since well before the latter film's July 22 launch, when word of about similarities between Fiveson's $257,000 flick and Michael Bay's $120 million bomb flooded the Web and helped fuel critics' attacks on The Island. Clonus, which was previously best-known for having been spoofed on Mystery Science Theater 3000, has since enjoyed a much closer look—probably even by its producers, who are said to cite 90 specific similarities between the films in their lawsuit.

At any rate, no less an authority than IMDB has already started listing The Island as a little more than a remake, and the lawsuit also alleges that Clonus' producers met with then-Paramount (and current DreamWorks honcho) Jeffrey Katzenberg about possible distribution. Bummer.

But Variety adds that all is not gloom and doom—at least for Fiveson:

(B)eginning with an early sequence where the clone played by Ewan McGregor leaves his bedroom and the cloning facility is shown, with guards watching carefully as the clones do calisthenics, he said he found the resemblance uncanny. "Honestly, I really liked it," he said, "because this is the way the movie should have been done."

Oh. Well. You know what that means: Somewhere in Hollywood, Michael Bay is smirking in vindication.