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‘The Holdovers’ has five Oscar nominations… and now, a credible accusation of plagiarism.
Well, this is uncomfortable…
We think the biggest buzz at this year’s edition Oscar awards It would be the absence of Messi, the dog Anatomy of a fallwho is rumored to not be attending the ceremony for a few hours because some members of the Academy were not very happy with the dog making the rounds.
Seriously, some companies with nominated films were complaining that the good guy was attending the Oscar luncheons because he was giving the film an unfair boost during the voting window.
The same old Hollywood…
But now a bigger bomb has dropped.
The Oscar nominated film The remains – a major awards contender nominated five times for Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Original Screenplay and Best Editing (and one of our favorite movies of 2023) – faces controversy a few hours before the Oscar ceremony.
Alexander Payne’s film, scripted by David Hemingson, has been accused of line-by-line plagiarism. The worst thing is that the film is nominated for Best Original Screenplay, compared to Teacher, Anatomy of a fall, May December and Past Lives – which ended its voting window at the end of last month.
According Luke and Paddington 2 writer Simon Stephenson, the script has striking similarities to his unproduced 2013 script. friscoabout a cynical pediatrician who finds himself caring for a teenage patient for several days. The remains stars Paul Giamatti (one of the favorites to win Best Actor tonight alongside Cillian Murphy for oppenheimer) as a cynical, world-weary teacher who looks after a teenage student for several days at a boarding school.
Stephenson filed documents comparing scenes from both scripts and sent them to the WGA in January seeking help. Now, Variety has made public one of those documents and reported Stephenson.
“The significant entirety of THE HOLDOVERS script has been copied from the FRISCO script by transposition,” the document states. “This includes the entire story of the FRISCO screenplay, the structure, the sequence, the scenes, the sequential subtempos within the scenes, the line-by-line substance of the action and dialogue, the characters, the arcs, the relationships, the theme and tone. Most of this has been done line by line, and a lot of the unique and highly specific elements created in FRISCO are easily and unmistakably identifiable in THE HOLDOVERS.”
Stephenson has been involved in months-long discussions with the WGA to address his claims, Variety reports.
To further complicate matters, Stephenson alleges that Payne had previously received the script from frisco in 2013 and in 2019, shortly before the director turned to Hemingson to collaborate with him on what would become The remains.
To be continued… But yes The remains win any major Oscars tonight (we’re predicting potentially two), these wins will be overshadowed by major controversy.
Tonight the 96th edition of the Oscars will be held. Stay tuned to Euronews Culture for our live coverage on Sunday night.
Additional sources • Variety