Screenwriter sues director Alexander Payne, claiming 'The Holdovers' was stolen from his script

This is read by an automated voice.Please report any issues or inconsistencies here.

See more from the L.A.Times in Google Search.

Set us as preferred A screenwriter is suing director Alexander Payne, alleging that the Oscar winner rewrote his script “Frisco” to become “The Holdovers.”Simon Stephenson, a screenwriter behind “The Electrical Life of Louis Wain” and “Luca,” is accusing Payne of copyright infringement in a lawsuit filed Wednesday in a California federal court.In court documents obtained by The Times, Stephenson alleges that he wrote “Frisco” based on his experiences as a pediatrician and uploaded it to the industry platform “The Black List,” where it was ranked the third-best unproduced screenplay in 2013.

The same year, the suit alleges agents for Stephenson sent the script to Payne, who declined the project.They sent it a second time in 2019, and Payne passed again, according to the civil complaint.“But in 2022, he finally made Stephenson’s screenplay,” the lawsuit reads.

“Under Payne’s direction, Stephenson’s children’s hospital became a boarding school, the cynical pediatrician became a cynical teacher, and the precocious patient became a precocious pupil.The film earned its credited screenwriter career-defining Academy Award and BAFTA nominations, and the Writers Guild Award for Original Screenplay.

Unfortunately, that credited screenwriter was not Stephenson, and the film was not called Frisco.It was called The Holdovers.”David Hemingson, the creator of ABC’s “Whiskey Cavalier” and a veteran television writer for shows including “Kitchen Confidential” and “How I Met Your Mother,” was also named as a defendant in the lawsuit.“The Holdovers” is Hemingson’s first produced feature film.Representatives for Payne, Hemingson and Focus Features did not immediately respond to a request for comment.In 2023, Payne told The Times that a pilot written by Hemingson, as well as the 1935 Fr...