Jonathan Demme, who directed "Philadelphia," showed up in a New York court for the trial of a $10 million lawsuit claiming the movie was a ripoff of a lawyer's life story.

The family of Geoffrey Francis Bowers is trying to prove that his story was stolen by the movie's creators, including Demme, writer Ron Nyswaner and producer Edward Saxon.Bowers' family's lawyer Lawrence Friedman told jurors in opening statements Tuesday that "Philadelphia" was born when a producer eager to make "the first great movie about AIDS" pursued the story of Bowers, who died in 1987.

Opposing lawyer Robert G. Sugarman said the movie's creators, including TriStar Pictures and its parent Sony Pictures Entertainment, could have just bought Bowers' life story if "Philadelphia" were really based on it.

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