American "Variety" magazine reported on March 9 that "The Stayers", which was nominated for the Best Original Screenplay award at this year's Oscars, was suspected of plagiarizing a work by Simon Stephenson, the screenwriter of Pixar's "One Day at a Time" works.
reported that Stephenson wrote to Lesley Mackey, senior director of production staff at the Writers Guild of America, in January this year, reporting that the script for "Stayers" was similar to his work "Frisco." Although "Frisco" has not yet been put into production. According to
reporting documents, Stephenson's "Frisco" tells the story of a world-weary middle-aged children's doctor and the 15-year-old patient he has to care for, while "The Stayer" is about a world-weary boarding school doctor. The main storyline of the story between the teacher and the 15-year-old student who had to be taken care of by him is roughly the same.
Stephenson said that "Stayers" director Alexander Payne approached the "Frisco" script twice. The first time was in 2013, when Bryan Besser, founder of film studio Verve Productions, gave the script for "Frisco" to Penn's co-producer Jim Burke. .
Another time in 2019, "Frisco" was recommended to Netflix executive Lisa Nishimura by producers John Woodward and Tanya Seghatchian of Brightstar Productions. nishimura), Nishimura Risa handed the script to Alexander Payne. During these two encounters with the "Frisco" script, Payne expressed that he was not interested and did not want to be a producer or director of the film.
Not long after he came into contact with the script of "Frisco" for the second time in 2019, Payne co-created "The League of Remainers" with David Hemingson. According to Payne on a podcast, the idea for "Stayers" came from a 1935 French film he saw at a film festival more than ten years ago. Although the film lists Hemingson as the sole screenwriter, in several interviews during awards season, Penn said he polished the script himself.
In response to Stephenson's report, Leslie McGee, senior director of production personnel for the Writers Guild, said that "Frisco" is a work that has not yet been put into production (written on spec), and the union has no right to interfere. On the other hand, union director Scott Alexander referred Stephenson to Leila Azari, assistant general counsel for the Editors Guild West (WGA West).
Stephenson was dissatisfied with Leslie's response and wrote directly to the Writers Guild board of directors, requesting an emergency meeting to discuss how to handle the matter. The board of directors responded that the association is conducting internal research on the incident and has no final conclusion yet. Stephenson then sent an email to the Writers Guild's board of directors, requesting a meeting to discuss how to handle the matter.
"Variety" pointed out that in Hollywood, script plagiarism controversies do not often come into public view. The last time an Oscar-nominated work was accused of plagiarizing someone else's script was in 2018, when the late screenwriter Paul Zindel accused Mexican director "Gyro" Guillermo del Toro In "The Shape of Water", some elements of his script "Let me hear your whisper" were stolen, and the top was sued in court for copyright infringement. However, the lawsuit was later dropped, and "The Shape of Water" won the Academy Award for Best Picture.
Since the voting for the Oscar awards has ended, it is difficult for Stephenson’s accusation to affect the final result of the Oscar. According to the results of other awards ceremonies, "Stayers" is very likely to win the Best Original Screenplay award at this year's Oscars. However, once it wins the Oscar, the plagiarism controversy surrounding "The Stayers" may further intensify.
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