Sony may have a big hit (and new, Bob Dole-approved franchise) on its hands with Paul Blart: Mall Cop, but did the studio pay hush money to take out a potential Cop killer?

That's the allegation of one set spy, who sent Indiewire this account of some secret, backdoor Blart action:

During production at the Burlington Mall in MA, the film’s title was mysteriously changed to “Untitled Kevin James Project” before being changed back to “Paul Blart: Mall Cop” a couple of weeks later. The story going around the set at the time was that a writer from New Hampshire was claiming that Kevin James stole his script which he apparently previously submitted to Happy Madison and that he also registered the title with the Motion Picture Association preventing Columbia-Sony from using it. One guy there who was definitely in a position to know said the studio was so shocked when they read the scripts side-by-side that that they immediately sent a Sony bigwig to NH with an apology and a check to “work it out” in typical Hollywood fashion. I also remember hearing that the writer was a lawyer and was really giving the producers a hard time. Kevin James looked pretty sheepish for a few days too.

When “Paul Blart: Mall Cop” was released last week, it reminded me of the stolen script story so I poked around online to see if I could find anything. Sure enough there’s a script online called “Mall Cop” by Alfred Thomas Catalfo. I just read it and it’s the same script and the same story! Kevin James just changed Catalfo’s mall cop character “Art” to “Blart” and changed a jewelry store to a bank. It’s still about a mall robbery with hostages being rescued by a mall cop who can’t get into the police academy and lives at home with his mother. Both scripts even have robots and scenes set in the Rainforest Cafe! The site says the writer is a lawyer with a mailing address in NH. I found the script online at http://www.scriptghost.com/samplescript

I don’t have an ax to grind with Kevin James or Happy Madison especially since it was good money and a pretty easy shoot but sometimes this Hollywood b.s. goes too far. I hope the writer made a deal and stuck it to them. Call me jaded.

We took a brief skim through Catalfo's script and though there do seem to be some similarities, we spotted no emasculating Segway, Blart's now-iconic transportation mode of choice. Still, we'd recommend that mall internal affairs get on this case pronto—after all, Seth Rogen's got his own take on the profession coming out soon in what is suddenly a hot genre. Call us when we get a mall cop who, having switched places with his son's body, must evade a comet and an erupting volcano (in the mall's arcade, natch).