Beloved Oscar Contender Accused Of Plagiarism By Disney Writer

The accusation against The Holdovers comes from a source that is worth taking seriously. Stephenson is established in his career with writing credits for major movies such as Disney’s Luca, and Paddington 2. He is leveling the accusation against fellow writer David Hemingson as well as The Holders director Alexander Payne.

Stephenson claims that Payne read the unproduced script for Frisco which Stephenson worked on, and that Hemingson then copied the ideas and premise and turned it into the script for The Holdovers. It is a serious allegation to make, but Stephenson feels that he has very solid proof that corroborates his claim.

Some of the biggest supportive evidence is that Stephenson has emails that seem to confirm Alexander Payne had Stephenson’s script for Frisco in both 2013 and 2019 when considering directing the potential movie. This would mean that Payne would have been well aware of the plot and premise of Frisco shortly before he joined working with Hemingson on The Holdovers.

In basic descriptions, The Holdovers and Frisco do have similar ideas. Frisco focuses on a middle-aged doctor who works with children and is put into the position of having to look after one of his 15-year-old patients.

The Holdovers is about a middle-aged school teacher who is put into the position of having to look after one of his 15-year-old students. The similar ideas combined with the suspicious timeline of when Payne would have had access to the script of Frisco raised alarms for Stephenson, and he has been actively pursuing a remedy to the injustice he believes has transpired.

Stephenson took his complaint with The Holdovers directly to the Writers Guild of America, emailing them for assistance. That emails read in part “I can demonstrate beyond any possible doubt that the meaningful entirety of the screenplay for a film with WGA-sanctioned credits that is currently on track to win a screenwriting Oscar has been plagiarised line-by-line from a popular unproduced screenplay of mine.” It goes on to say of Payne “I can also show that the director of the offending film was sent and read my screenplay on two separate occasions prior to the offending film entering development.”

However, Stephenson so far is not gaining any actionable traction with his complaint. The WGA responded saying that they were not the appropriate remedy to his situation and that he would have to pursue the matter legally with a lawyer to truly handle the matter. That would no doubt be a lengthy and expensive process, with The Holdovers meanwhile continuing to receive recognition in the meantime that Stephenson believes should go to him.

This also is not the first time a Best Picture nominee has been subject to claims of plagiarism. Guillermo del Toro also faced such claims for The Shape of Water due to playwriter Paul Zindel feeling the movie bore an uncanny resemblance to his play Let Me Hear You Whisper. Those accusations were ultimately dismissed when Zindel sued for copyright infringement. It will be interesting to see what course matters take with The Holdovers.

While the situation with The Holdovers is not as visually captivating as the Will Smith drama from the past, it does hold much more serious implications. It remains to be seen exactly how far Stephenson is willing to pursue the matter in his confidence that he has been wronged.

Source: Variety