I bet right about now, the producers of the film The Curious Case of Benjamin Button are wishing they had stuck a little closer to the source material. You know, like keeping the Baltimore setting.

Instead, they changed it up a bit, and now they're facing a lawsuit.

Adriana Pichini is an Italian author who claims that the Brad Pitt version of the story is a little too similar to her 1994 work Il Ritorno di Arthur all'Innocenza, or Arthur's Return to Innocence.

Nevermind that the film shares a title with the 1921 short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald. I guess Americans aren't the only litigious people on the planet.

According to the New York Times story, "Ms. Pichini wrote and registered with the Italian copyright authorities in 1994. She sent her story to publishers in the United States, though it was not published."

So now a Roman judge will read the book and watch the movie to determine how similar the two are, and if the complaint needs further action.

Full disclosure: I have yet to see the movie. Boo, hiss, I know. But come on, it's a little daunting to walk into a movie theater knowing you're going to be there for three hours. 

Either way, I don't think I'm ever going to get my hands on Pichini's work, so I guess I'll have to wait and see what the judge determines.

And I wonder what Fitzgerald would say if he could see this state of affairs.