STEPHEN KING’s UNDER the DOME is smoking hot but crix say the concept was ripped off from “The Simpsons Movie!”
The series – based on a Stephen King novel of the same name – tells the terrifying story of what happens to the small northeastern town of Chester’s Mill when a mysterious dome cuts it off from the rest of the world.
The June 24 preem got an impressive 13 million viewers, but The ENQUIRER can reveal that when King’s book was published in 2009, outraged readers complained that the plot came right from the Simpsons’ 2007 animated big-screen adventure, as their town of Springfield suffered a similar fate.
King insisted it was just a coincidence and that he’d never even seen “The Simpsons Movie.”
To prove that he got the idea first, King published the first 60 pages of his book on his website – in the original IBM typescript.
The best-selling author claims he actually started writing the story in the 1970s and produced an unpublished version in 1985 called “The Cannibals.”
BUT “Simpsons” producers didn’t let King off the hook.
They mocked the “coincidence” later on in a 2010 TV episode.
Homer’s evil-hearted industrialist boss Montgomery Burns begins to seal Springfield with a giant dome while brandishing a copy of King’s book but then stops because it had already been done before – in “The Simpsons Movie.”