They were right when they said there's no such thing as an original story. Some critics complained the famous 1961 movie "West Side Story" stole its plot from "Romeo and Juliet." But "borrowing" stories is nothing new. Shakespeare based "Romeo and Juliet" on a long, boring poem by Arthur Brooke called "The Tragical Historie of Romeus and Juliet." But Brooke's poem was based on a French story by Pierre Boaistrau, and this story was taken from Italian writer Matteo Bandellom, whose story is supposedly a true account from the 11th century. And this chain continues back all the way to a Greek story from around the year 400 A.D.