While You Were Sleeping premiered in Los Angeles, CA on 9 April 1995 before wider release 12 days later.
Fredric Lebow and Daniel Sullivan began work on the script in 1989, and sold it to Disney's Hollywood Pictures in 1994 (then titled "Coma Guy"), production was delayed when the writers were sued for appropriating "key elements" from Cornell Woolrich's 1948 novel, I Married a Dead Man and the 1950 film No Man of Her Own (Paramount Studios would release Mrs. Winterbourne, based on those two properties in 1996). Hollywood Pictures settled out of court, but production was once again in jeopardy when star Bill Pullman tried to quit the project after "the worst table read of all time."
While You Were Sleeping would go on to be a box office hit and the 13th highest-grossing film of the year.
