With the Oscars just around the corner, one of the critically acclaimed films sweeping the awards season, ‘The Holdovers’, has found itself muddled in recent controversy.
The 2023 movie directed by Alexander Payne, which features Paul Giamatti as a surly teacher at a boarding school, is accused of plagiarizing from an unproduced screenplay titled ‘Frisco’.
Simon Stephenson, the writer behind ‘Luca’ and ‘Paddington 2’, alleges that ‘The Holdovers’ script bears striking similarities to his work, which was recognized on the Black List in 2013 for being among the year’s best-unproduced screenplays.
Stephenson has prepared documents comparing both scripts, highlighting identical scenes, dialogues, and overall structure. In one of the documents obtained and released by Variety, he claims that Payne’s ‘The Holdovers’ screenplay has copied the “meaningful entirety” of ‘Frisco’, including its story, characters, and thematic elements.
“The meaningful entirety of the screenplay for THE HOLDOVERS has been copied from the FRISCO screenplay by transposition. This includes the FRISCO screenplay’s entire story, structure, sequencing, scenes, sequential sub-beats within scenes, line-by-line substance of action and dialogue, characters, arcs, relationships, theme and tone.
A majority of this has been done line-for-line, and a large number of unique and highly specific elements created in FRISCO are readily and unequivocally identifiable in THE HOLDOVERS.”
The timing of this allegation is daunting for Payne, considering that his film is currently in the running for the Best Original Screenplay category at the 2024 Oscars, holding today, March 10.
Stephenson’s allegations suggest a deep-rooted issue of intellectual property theft, raising questions about the originality of ‘The Holdovers’ script. The controversy intensified when it was revealed that Payne had been sent drafts of ‘Frisco’ in 2013 and 2019.
The outcome of this dispute could have significant implications for the film’s Oscar chances and the broader conversation around plagiarism in Hollywood.
Apart from The Holdovers, other films aiming to take home the award for Best Original Screenplay are Anatomy of a Fall, Maestro, May December and Past Lives.