In a just-published Variety report, “The Holdovers” screenwriters David Hemingson and Alexander Payne (not credited) have been accused of stealing, scene-for-scene, line-by-line, another writer’s script.
Screenwriter Simon Stephenson had written “Frisco” back in 2013, and the script circulated on the famous “Black List” for a few years. Stephenson goes as far as to tell THR that he had sent over his script to ‘Holdovers’ helmer Payne, who ended up reading and passing on it, twice. He’s given email confirmation to THR.
“Frisco” follows a grumpy children’s doctor and a 15-year-old patient he gets stuck looking after. Stephenson claims that there are very few elements in “The Holdovers” that bear no relation to “Frisco.”
I’m reading multiple interpretations about whether this constituted plagiarism, or not. These are two screenplays with the same basic setup. I’ll let you judge for yourself via the Variety report’s 33-page “Introductory Document” titled “FRISCO and THE HOLDOVERS.”
Payne had originally stated that the idea for “The Holdovers” came to him after watching a 1935 French film at the Telluride Film Festival, well over 12 years ago (via “The Rough Cut” podcast)
I had the idea for the movie — that I stole from a 1935 French movie I’d seen at a film festival about a dozen years ago — and I thought ‘That’s a good premise for a movie.’ Not the story, how it pans out, but the premise.
It should be mentioned that these accusations are not coming, as is sometimes the case, from some disgruntled and failed screenwriter. Stephenson has some clout in the industry having helped write Pixar’s “Luca,” “Paddington 2” and “The Electrical Life of Louis Wain,”
It should additionally be noted that Hemingson’s ‘Holdovers’ script might potentially win the Oscar for Original Screenplay at tomorrow night’s Academy Awards ceremony. These accusations won’t affect its chances of winning the award since Oscar voting ended many days ago.
What I was particularly alarmed by was how the WGA, in cowardly fashion, refused to put this matter into arbitration by using the measly excuse that the original was written on spec. By the WGA’s logic, this would mean that any script by a WGA member, not written with studio backing, has absolutely no protection against plagiarism. Ridiculous.
The result is that, instead of the matter being dealt with internally, with professional arbiters, it’s now been leaked to the trades, no doubt by Stephenson, and any sort of fair assessment has been thrown out of the window, replaced by social media outrage.
