LOS ANGELES – A British writer has accused the team behind The Holdovers, Alexander Payne’s 1970s-era boarding school drama that is up for an Oscar for best original screenplay, of plagiarising his unproduced work, Variety reported.
Simon Stephenson, who co-wrote Pixar’s Luca among other films, wrote to the Writers Guild of America in January to air his concerns, calling evidence that The Holdovers was taken “line-by-line” from his work “genuinely overwhelming.”
Stephenson said his screenplay Frisco focused on a world-weary doctor and a 15-year-old patient he is forced to look after. The Holdovers centers on a persnickety teacher, a cook and a teenage student stuck on campus for the holidays.
Frisco was never produced, but landed on Hollywood’s famous “Black List” of unmade screenplays, and the writer says Payne reviewed the script twice – a claim that Variety says appears to be backed up by a series of emails it was able to review.
Payne and The Holdovers screenwriter David Hemingson – who could win an Oscar on Sunday night – declined comment, Variety said.
Stephenson confirmed the validity of the emails to Variety, which published its story on the eve of Sunday’s Academy Awards.
Hemingson is the sole credited writer on The Holdovers.
Payne has said he helped mold the script, and got the premise from a 1930s French film he’d seen at a festival years ago.
“I’m very aware that people can often have surprisingly similar ideas and sometimes a few elements can be ‘borrowed’ etc. This just isn’t that situation,” Stephenson wrote to the WGA, according to Variety.
“The two screenplays are forensically identical and riddled with unique smoking guns throughout.”
The guild had initially indicated to Stephenson that it was not planning to get involved in the matter, but the complaint’s current status within the union was unclear, Variety reported.
The Holdovers is nominated for five Oscars – best picture, best actor for Paul Giamatti, best supporting actress for Da’Vine Joy Randolph, best original screenplay and best editing. AFP
