Publishing house Simon & Schuster, and children's author Margaret Peterson Haddix are looking into legal options against The Walt Disney Co. and writer/director M. Night Shyamalan, claiming that 'The Village' bears striking similarities to one of Haddix's children's books.

The Internet has been ablaze with chatter since 'The Village' premiered two weeks ago, saying that Shymalan's latest creeper may have ripped off Haddix's 1995 YA novel 'Running Out Of Time.'

Several blogs and movie review sites were littered with angry posts like 'M. Night 'SHAM'-alan's Blatant Ripoff' and 'I came out of it convinced that Shyamalin had read Running Out of Time.'

Haddix told Reuters that she heard about the similarities from fans and journalists last week who began emailing and calling her and her publisher to ask if she had sold the book to Disney or Shyamalan. Running Out Of Time's film rights had been optioned at one time by Nickelodeon, who let the option expire in May 2003 without making a film. But, Haddix said she has never spoken to either Shymalan or Disney about the book.

'It was the fans that really pointed it out in the first place,' said Simon & Schuster spokesperson Tracy van Straaten. 'The book is about a young tomboyish girl in a rural village in the 1800s who comes to learn that... the adults have kept (a) secret from the children of the village. She finds that out when her mother sends her out to get medicine. But she learns it pretty early on in the book and then discovers all sorts of other intrigue.'

Shyamalan's 'The Village' centers around an innocent, blind tomboy who must venture out of her 19th century village and beyond the spooky woods in search of medicine. Along the way she discovers that things aren't as she thought they'd be and that the village elders have kept a secret from the younger people in their community.

[Spoiler alert! Do not read the following paragraph if you do not want to have the twist revealed]

The similarities are clearly evident in the surprise twist at the end of Shymalan's film that reveals that the 19th century village, just as the village in Running out of Time, is actually placed in contemporary 20th century.

'This is a children’s book...that sold more than half a million copies and won prizes, so it’s not an obscure book for us,' van Straaten said. The book was nominated for an Edgar Award, the nation’s top prize for mystery stories.

Haddix told the New York Times that she has since seen 'The Village' and noted that 'the spoiler ending is the thing that is the biggest similarity.'

Disney said, in a statement 'Whatever claims are being made of similarities between the book and the movie have no merit.'

'The Village' had been the first hit for Disney, since last summer's 'Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl.' Even though Shymalan was able to steal Pirates' crown as the top summer weekend opener, 'The Village' has suffered greatly since it's record breaking coup. Due to bad word of mouth, 'The Village' has fallen sharply in box office receipts, losing over half of its audience in the second weekend.

Shymalan and his films aren't immune to controversy. The elusive director has already been slammed by fans who were upset over the trick the filmmaker pulled off with the help of the SciFi channel. The cable channel ran a 'documentary' called 'The Buried Secret of M. Night Shyamalan', but fans found out that the doc was just a phony designed to boost the films box office clout. Shymalan and the SciFi channel apologized to fans who were fooled into thinking the program would reveal terrible truths in the directors secretive life. Of course they didn't reveal the program was a hoax until after the the program aired to high ratings.

Shyamalan is also still locked in a legal battle with screenwriter Robert McIlhinney, who claimed that Shymalan's 'Signs' ripped off his unproduced script titled 'Lord of the Barrens: The Jersey Devil.'

Entering its third weekend, 'The Village' has yet to break the $100 million mark.

Haddix got the idea for 'Running Out of Time' while working as a journalist in Indiana, and has published 16 books, including the popular 'Shadow Children' series.