A British writer has accused the team behind The The Holdovers, Alexander Payne's 1970s boarding house drama that is in the Oscar race for best original screenplay, of plagiarized his unrealized work, Variety reported.
Simon Stevenson, who co-wrote Pixar's Luke and other films, wrote to the Screenwriters Guild of America in January to voice his concerns, calling evidence that The Holdovers was taken "line by line" from his work, "truly stunning".
Stevenson says his script for "Frisco" centers on a world-weary doctor and a 15-year-old patient he's forced to care for. The Holdovers focuses on a perverted teacher, a chef and a teenage student stuck on campus for the holidays.
"Frisco" was never produced, but fell on Hollywood's notorious "blacklist" of unrealized scripts, and the writer claims Payne went over the script twice, a claim that Variety says appears to be backed up by a series of emails.
Payne and Oscar-winning The Holdovers screenwriter David Hemmingson declined to comment.
Stephenson confirmed the validity of the emails by releasing his material on the eve of the awards ceremony.
Heminson is the sole writer of The Holdovers.
Payne stated that he helped create the script and took the idea from a 1930s French film he saw at a festival years ago.
"I know very well that people can often have surprisingly similar ideas and sometimes a few elements can be 'borrowed' etc. This is just not the situation," he explained.
The guild initially told Stevenson it did not intend to engage in the matter, but the current status of the complaint is unclear.
The Holdovers was nominated for five Oscars - for best picture, best actor for Paul Giamatti, best supporting actress for Da'Vine Joy Randolph, best original screenplay and best editing. /BGNES
