2 publishers · first seen Thu, 29 Oct 2026 03:00 UTC · updated Thu, 29 Oct 2026 11:00 UTC
Screenwriter Simon Stephenson has filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against director Alexander Payne, writer David Hemingson, producer Mark Johnson, and several production companies including Gran Via Productions, Focus Features, Miramax, and Honest Scholar. Stephenson alleges that key elements of his unproduced 2013 screenplay, Frisco, were copied into the Oscar-winning film The Holdovers, with the children’s hospital setting changed to a boarding school, the pediatrician to a teacher, and the patient to a pupil.
The lawsuit claims Payne accessed Frisco in 2013 and again in 2019, shortly before development of The Holdovers began, and that 46 incidents from Frisco appear in the film’s script. Stephenson is seeking unspecified damages and a court order to stop further exploitation of the film. Payne has dismissed the claims as baseless, citing inspiration from the 1935 French film Merlusse, while Stephenson’s legal team argues that while ideas cannot be copyrighted, the specific expression in Frisco was unlawfully used.
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