The director and screenwriter behind the Oscar-winning filmThe Holdovershave been sued by a writer who claims they copied 46 story incidents from his unproduced screenplay, including 24 that allegedly appear in the same order.
Simon Stephenson, whose credits include Pixar’sLucaandPaddington 2, filed the copyright lawsuit Wednesday, October 28, 2026, in Los Angeles federal court against director Alexander Payne, screenwriter David Hemingson and several production and distribution companies. He alleges that Payne received his 2013 screenplayFriscoyears before developing the 2023 film and ultimately used its story structure without permission.
The complaint claims the filmmakers transformedFrisco, a story about a cynical pediatrician accompanying a teenage patient on a trip to San Francisco, intoThe Holdovers, which follows a bitter boarding-school teacher and a troubled student spending the Christmas holidays together. Stephenson argues that changing the characters’ professions and the setting concealed extensive similarities between the two works.
Among the examples cited is a line from a May 2021 draft ofThe Holdoversin which teenage character Angus discusses traveling to a medical conference. Stephenson’s attorneys argue that the reference makes sense withinFrisco, where the central character is a physician, but has no apparent connection to the boarding-school story. The line was later removed, while surrounding dialogue remained, according to the complaint.
Stephenson also identifies an unusual screenplay-formatting error that he claims appears in both scripts. His attorneys contend that the matching detail, combined with the 46 alleged story parallels, supports the accusation that the filmmakers copied his work rather than independently developed a similar narrative.
The lawsuit includes email exchanges that Stephenson says establish Payne’s access toFrisco. According to the filing, the director received the screenplay in 2013 and again in 2019 but declined to make the project. Stephenson alleges that Payne later directedThe Holdoversusing material taken from the earlier work.
The complaint names producer Mark Johnson and Granatures, Miramax and related companies involved in producing or distributing the film
Stephenson also accuses Payne of removing or concealing copyright-management information identifying him as the author ofFrisco, alleging that the changes obscured the
The dispute first became public in March 2024, when Stephenson raised plagiarism allegations in correspondence with the Writers Guild of America. He argued that the films shared extensive structural and narrative similarities and submitted comparisons to support his position.
Payne previously rejected the accusations, calling them “the stupidest thing in the world” during an appearance at the Sarajevo <a href="https://cinemamix360.com/2026/11/02/ai-film-festival-japan-draws-730-entries-from-more-than-60-countries/" title="AI Film Festival Japan Draws 730 Entries From More Than 60 Countries”>Film Festival in 2024. The director has attributed the origins ofThe Holdoverspartly to the 1935 French filmMerlusseand a boarding-school television pilot
Released in 2023,The Holdoversreceived five Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay. Da’Vine Joy Randolph won Best Supporting Actress for her performance in the film.
Stephenson is seeking damages, attorney’s fees, and an injunction against further alleged copyright infringement. His lawsuit places the competing accounts of the film’s development before a federal court, where he will seek to establish that the similarities resulted from unauthorized copying.
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Camila Curcio
Camila studied Entertainment Journalism at UCLA and is the founder of a clothing brand inspired by music festivals and youth culture. Her YouTube channel, Cami’s Playlist, focuses on concerts and music history. With experience in branding, marketing, and content creation, her work has taken her to festivals around the world, shaping her unique voice in digital media and fashion.
