Alexander Payne Hit With Copyright Suit Over ‘The Holdovers’ Script
A screenwriter sued Alexander Payne on Wednesday, alleging that the script for “The Holdovers” was based on his unproduced screenplay set at a children’s hospital. The screenwriter, Simon Stephenson, took his allegations to the Writers Guild of America in 2024, but was advised that the union could not adjudicate the issue and was referred to […]
Screenwriter Simon Stephenson has filed a lawsuit against director Alexander Payne and several others, accusing them of copyright infringement and plagiarism in his screenplay "The Holdovers." The alleged copying spans from the overall story to individual exchanges, with 46 incidents corresponding across the works, 24 of which occur in the same order.
Stephenson alleges that Payne read his "Frisco" script in 2013 and 2019, before eventually using it for "The Holdovers" in 2022. The lawsuit names Payne, screenwriter David Hemingson, producer Mark Johnson, Miramax, Focus Features and Universal Home Entertainment as defendants. "The Holdovers" tells the story of a cantankerous boarding school teacher, forced to play caretaker to a teen over a boarding school's holiday break, and has been nominated for five Academy Awards.
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