Alison Brie and Dave Franco are being sued over their film Together.
The couple and collaborators, who have been married since 2017, have a horror film coming out in August that tells the story of a couple that gets psychically fused together.
However, on Tuesday (May 13), an NYC-based film festival StudioFest filed a $17 million lawsuit against Alison and Dave, claiming that they copied a 2023 independent film Better Half.
Better Half is “a surreal, satirical comedy about a man and a woman who have a one-night stand, and wake up to see that they have become literally and physically attached.” It was written and directed by Patrick Henry Phelan, and produced by Jess Jacklin and Charles Beale.
Keep reading to find out more…
According to the lawsuit, the casting director for Better Half sent the script to Alison and Dave‘s agents 2020, offering to have them star in the movie. However, Dave‘s agent reportedly passed. The plaintiff is now accusing Alison and Dave of constructing an “intentional scheme” to copy the film “because they wanted to produce the film themselves and have WME package the project with one of the agency’s own writers.”
The producers for Better Half reportedly saw Together at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year.
“As the audience laughed and cheered, Jacklin and Beale sat in stunned silence, their worst nightmare unfolding. Scene after scene confirmed that Defendants did not simply take ‘stock ideas’ or ‘scenes a faire’ but stole virtually every unique aspect of Better Half’s copyrightable expression,” the lawsuit reads.
The documents also go on to detail the similarities between the two films.
“In both Better Half and Together, the main characters struggle to navigate daily life as their physical attachment progresses and they start to control each other’s body parts. While at first they desperately search for ways to detach their bodies — from medical intervention to chainsaws— by the end, they resign themselves to their conjoined existence,” it says.
It then describes a “strikingly similar bathroom sequence where the protagonists become attached at the genitals and attempt to hide their intimate encounter from a minor character waiting just outside,” and says that both films end with the couples pulling out a vinyl copy of the Spice Girls album “Spiceworld.”
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