Holdovers Controversy

We’re after the Oscars now, so I guess this is last year’s news? There was a big article in Variety where the screenwriter of an unproduced script, Frisco, alleged that Alexander Payne’s acclaimed film The Holdovers rips it off.

The writer put together an elaborate memo (embedded in the Variety piece) detailing all the similarities.

There was also an article in The Wrap pushing back against the idea.

My first and foremost feeling is that I’m glad I am nowhere near this controversy.

My second thought is that I started to read the writer’s memo...and while there was a lot of evidence presented, when I looked at the individual examples (comparing page to page), they seemed kinda vague.

I wrote earlier how my writing partner and I, several years ago, wrote (and actually got optioned) a sci-fi pilot that was the same concept as Free Guy. It was a total coincidence. I know for a fact from the calendar there was no way we knew about Free Guy, and the Free Guy writer knew about us.

But I know from that experience that similar concepts lend themselves to similar ideas in execution. The material only has so many places to go.

The situation with The Holdovers is different because there is specific evidence that Alexander Payne was twice submitted, and passed on, the Frisco script.

So that’s kind of damning.

It’s also super weird. I find it hard to believe that Payne would have instructed the screenwriter of The Holdovers to keep referencing an unproduced script as a model. Everybody knows of the trouble you can get in when you do this.

I started to write more about this, but don’t want to speculate. It’s just weird. And sort of sad.

Also sad is that The Holdovers is apparently really great, but it’s streaming on Peacock, and I draw the line at subscribing to Peacock.