Actor Owen Wilson is being challenged by Steely Dan for "stealing" a character from one of their songs for his new movie 'You, Me and Dupree".
Steely Dan founders Walter Becker and Donald Fagen lay claim to the original Dupree character in their song 'Cousin Dupree' from their 2001 album Two Against One' and have written an open letter to Owen's brother Luke on their website.'Cousin Dupree' is about a musician who returns home, finds his now grown up cousin is attractive and decides to stay. In 'You, Me and Dupree', Owen Wilson's character returns to stay with an old friend who is getting married and stays.
The coincide was enough for Becker and Fagen to post a letter to Luke Wilson on their website. "What we suspect may have happened is this: some hack writer or producer or whatever they call themselves in Malibu or Los Feliz apparently heard our Grammy winning song 'Couson Dupree' on the radio and through, hey, man, this is a cool idea for a character in a movie or something".
"OK, so the "cousin" idea was no doubt eliminated so as not to offend the fundamentalist ticket buyers in the flyovers. Nevertheless, they like, took our character, this real dog sleeping on the couch and all and put him the middle of some hokey "Down and Out in Beverly Hills" rip off story and then, when it came time to change the character's name or whatever so people wouldn't know what a rip the whole thing was, they didn't even bother to think up a new fucking name for the guy!"
Steely Dan offered Wilson the chance to come to their show in Irvine, California on Wednesday night (July 19). Wilson declined the offer.
