Steely Dan founders Walter Becker and Donald Fagen have hit out at a new film starring Owen Wilson, saying that the part the actor plays is based on the character depicted in a song appearing on their 2001 album 'Two Against One'. The pair allege that the title role in 'You, Me And Dupree' is a clear lift from their song 'Cousin Dupree', and have posted an open letter to Wilson's brother (fellow actor Luke) on their website. To be honest, I can't quite understand what Luke Wilson has to do with it, as he has no involvement in the film, but there you go.
Anyway, the song is about a musician who goes home to find that he rather likes his grown up cousin and decides to stay. The film is about a man who goes home to see an old friend who is getting married and decides to stay.
Becker and Fagen wrote 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 'Cousin 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!"