After a minor resurgence that saw him gain widespread acclaim for his performances in Honey Boy, The Peanut Butter Falcon and Pieces of a Woman, Shia LaBeouf’s career hit the skids again when he was hit with a series of troubling accusations by a former girlfriend, with the actor now on an extended sabbatical from acting and seeking treatment for his well-documented personal issues.
For a while, it looked as though LaBeouf was on course to establish himself as one of his generation’s finest talents, a moniker several of his former co-stars would agree with, but a succession of highly publicized incidents have been the main talking points surrounding the 35 year-old star for the last few years, as opposed to his on-camera work.
A decade ago, he was viewed as Hollywood’s next big thing having been personally endorsed by Steven Spielberg before starring in a string of box office successes including I, Robot, Constantine, Michael Bay’s first three Transformers blockbusters, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Eagle Eye and Disturbia, before turning his back on commercial filmmaking altogether.
However, that hasn’t stopped the latter of those titles from finding new life on HBO Max, with D.J. Caruso’s home invasion thriller currently one of the ten most-watched titles on the platform. A court may have decreed otherwise following a lawsuit, but it’s hardly a secret that Disturbia is heavily indebted to Alfred Hitchcock’s classic Rear Window, lifting almost the entire plot directly from the 1954 mystery, albeit with a modern spin.
Disturbia was a big hit at the time, hauling in $118 million at the box office on a $20 million budget, and fourteen years later it’s proving to be a surprise hit on WarnerMedia’s streaming service.
