Plagiarism rears its head once again!
A screenwriter has accused the Oscar-nominated film, “The Holdovers,” of plagiarizing a script he wrote more than a decade ago.
Simon Stephenson, who has worked on the films “Luca” and “Paddington 2,” outlined his allegations in emails to the Writer’s Guild of America (WGA).
Full article, HERE from Fox News.
Apparently the Oscars was last night, not that I watched it…
And yes, one should always guard your IP. The WGA has a specific procedure for filing stories with them for just this reason, much like we use copyright on the writing side.
Stuff like this is also why you should ALWAYS read any contract before you sign it, especially if any rights to your IP are involved.
Simon Stephenson, who wrote the screenplay for “Frisco”, is Scottish (Born in Edinburgh.) He lives and works in Los Angeles.
The writer who wrote the screenplay for “The Holdovers” is David Hemingson. If you look up his Wikipedia page, two things become evident:
1) “The Holdovers” was his his first foray into screenwriting for a film. Up until then, it was always television shows.
2) All of his awards for screenwriting have been from “The Holdovers”. He only has one nomination for an award in Television, despite that being the bulk of his work to date.
If you follow the link in the Fox article through to the exclusive at Variety, there’s more details. Of particular interest is this statement:
{ At the heart of Stephenson’s complaint is the contention that Payne had the “Frisco” script in both 2013 and again in late 2019, right before Payne approached Hemingson about collaborating on a project. }
Reading the Variety article it’s clear that the WGA isn’t going to do anything. That’s how Hollywood is. He needs to lawyer up and go to court. Because he went to the WGA first, they’re figuring if they just keep stalling him, he’ll go away. They’re probably even telling him that if he doesn’t shut up, his career is over.
Thanks to my friend, my attempt at a series was backed by the biggest law firm in Hollywood, so I’m fairly hopeful that no one will ever try to steal anything from that. Though if they did, I’d probably never know it as I’m not a movie person.
I haven’t watched the Oscars for decades. I was at some point thinking about seeing “Oppenheimer” because of the subject matter. However, due to Hollywierd being so woke, now that it has won several Oscars, I’m sure it will just piss me off and elevate my blood pressure.
Oppenheimer is about his being a commie and consorting with commies. And trying to cover (I guess) for his consorting with commies.
It’s really got little to do with the Manhattan project – or at least that’s my understanding.
I forget the name of the organizational part of SWG that you register with. When I was seeing if I could get Valens made into a series on one of the cable channels we had to file with them, just in case. I’m surprised this guy didn’t.
Or maybe he’s just wrong?
You can’t copyright a plot. Trust me, if you could, more than half of the men’s adventure/harem books would be owing me a fortune. I got ripped off on plot and plot elements more than a walgreens in San Francisco.
All- Good points, and John is correct… sigh
“There is no such thing as a new idea. It is impossible. We simply take a lot of old ideas and put them into a sort of mental kaleidoscope. We give them a turn and they make new and curious combinations. We keep on turning and making new combinations indefinitely; but they are the same old pieces of colored glass that have been in use through all the ages.”
― Mark Twain, Mark Twain’s Own Autobiography: The Chapters from the North American Review
The Oscars… maybe Elon Musk will buy them and fire them.