Oscar-nominated film ‘The Holdovers’ accused of plagiarism day before event: ‘Overwhelming’

A major film up for five awards at this year’s Oscars has been accused of “line by line” plagiarism in an explosive new report published on the eve of the event.

An Oscar statue at the Ray Dolby Ballroom in Los Angeles. Picture: Robyn Beck / AFP.

The Holdovers, a film nominated for five Oscars including Best Picture, has been accused on the eve of the awards ceremony of being “plagiarised line-by-line” from a decade-old screenplay, according to a report.

Simon Stephenson, best known for working on popular movies Luca and Paddington 2, made the bombshell allegations in emails to the Writer’s Guild of America that were obtained by Variety and published on the eve of the 2024 Academy Awards.

The screenwriter alleges in the missives that The Holdovers director Alexander Payne likely read a script for his remarkably similar movie Frisco when it was floated around Hollywood in 2013 but was never made into a film.

“The evidence The Holdovers screenplay has been plagiarised line-by-line from Frisco is genuinely overwhelming – anybody who looks at even the briefest sample pretty much invariably uses the word ‘brazen,’” Stephenson wrote in the email he sent to the WGA’s director of credits Lesley Mackey, after speaking with him about the movies’ similarities.

Screenwriter Simon Stephenson made bombshell plagiarism allegations against ‘The Holdovers’ in emails to the Writer’s Guild of America.

Stephenson alleges in the missives that The Holdovers director Alexander Payne (pictured) likely read a script for his eerily similar movie Frisco when it made the rounds around Hollywood in 2013. Picture: Getty Images.

Frisco is a drama that follows a cranky children’s hospital worker who gets stuck watching after his 15-year-old student — similar to how Paul Giamatti plays a prep-school classics teacher who spends a Christmas break with a troubled teen, played by Dominic Sessa, and the school’s cafeteria manager, played by Da’Vine Joy Randolph.

Stephenson meticulously compared the two films scene by scene as well as important sequences and dialogues, The NY Post reports.

He alleges Payne reviewed the Frisco script in 2013 and had it again in late 2019 before he approached first-time film writer David Hemingson about The Holdovers. Hemingson also received producing credits for the movie.

David Hemingson is credited as the sole screenwriter for The Holdovers. Picture: Getty Images.

The Holdovers is nominated for Best Picture at the 2024 Academy Awards. Picture: AFP.

In a February 25 email to the WGA board, Stephenson wrote: “I can demonstrate beyond any possible doubt that the meaningful entirety of the screenplay for a film with WGA-sanctioned credits that is currently on track to win a screenwriting Oscar has been plagiarised line-by-line from a popular unproduced screenplay of mine.

“I can also show that the director of the offending film was sent and read my screenplay on two separate occasions prior to the offending film entering development,” he continued.

Stephenson claims that only five parts from The Holdovers are not in his Frisco script — including, ironically, a backstory about someone getting away with plagiarism, Variety reported.

“By ‘meaningful entirety’ I do mean literally everything- story, characters, structure, scenes, dialogue, the whole thing. Some of it is just insanely brazen: many of the most important scenes are effectively unaltered and even remain visibly identical in layout on the page.”

A WGA associate counsel told him it is not a guild issue and referred him to a Los Angeles law firm but told Stephenson “A lawsuit remains the most viable option under these circumstances.”

The Holdovers is nominated for five awards at this year’s Oscars, including Best Original Screenplay.

Stephenson and Payne declined to comment to Variety, and they could not immediately be reached by The Post.

Payne previously won two Academy Awards for Best Adapted Screenplay for his films “Sideways” (2005) and “The Descendants” (2012).

– With The NY Post

Originally published as Oscar-nominated film ‘The Holdovers’ accused of plagiarism day before event: ‘Overwhelming’