Alison Brie and Dave Franco have been hit with a copyright infringement suit over “Together,” their independent horror film that sold for a reported $17 million after a bidding war at Sundance.
The suit filed on Tuesday alleges that the film is a “blatant rip-off” of “Better Half,” a 2023 independent film. The suit claims that “Together” steals the high-concept idea of a couple who find themselves physically fused together, as well as numerous other plot and thematic elements, including a “near verbatim” reference to Plato’s Symposium.
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Franco and Brie are married and have collaborated on several projects. According to the suit, they were pitched “Better Half” in 2020, but they and their WME agents turned it down.
The producers of “Better Half,” Jess Jacklin and Charles Beale, heard about “Together” the day before it screened at Sundance, and decided to view it to assess the similarities.
“As the audience laughed and cheered, Jacklin and Beale sat in stunned silence, their worst nightmare unfolding,” the suit states. “Scene after scene confirmed that Defendants did not simply take ‘stock ideas’ or ‘scenes a faire’ but stole virtually every unique aspect of ‘Better Half’s’ copyrightable expression.”
The lawsuit alleges that the defendants engaged in an “intentional scheme” to copy their film, and that Brie and Franco rejected the initial offer “because they wanted to produce the film themselves and have WME package the project with one of the agency’s own writers.”
Neon acquired the film at Sundance and is set to release it on Aug. 1. The distributor is named as a defendant along with Brie, Franco, WME and writer-director Michael Shanks.
In response, a WME spokesperson called the suit “frivolous and without merit.”
“The facts in this case are clear and we plan to vigorously defend ourselves,” the spokesperson said.
“Better Half” was written and directed by Patrick Henry Phelan, who worked as an assistant director in New York before getting his MFA in screenwriting at USC. The film was his feature debut. StudioFest, the production company, is the only named plaintiff in the suit.
According to the suit, the casting director on “Better Half” emailed a script and synopsis to Franco and Brie’s agents at WME in August 2020, along with an offer for the couple to star. Franco’s agent quickly responded that, “Dave is going to pass, but thank you for thinking of him.”
In the synopsis, the “Better Half” was described “a surreal, satirical comedy about a man and a woman who have a one-night stand, and wake up to see that they have become literally and physically attached.”
The email did not describe it as horror film. When it appeared at the Brooklyn Film Festival, it was billed as a romantic comedy.
The suit describes numerous alleged similarities between the two films.
“In both ‘Better Half’ and ‘Together,’ the main characters struggle to navigate daily life as their physical attachment progresses and they start to control each other’s body parts,” the complaint alleges. “While at first they desperately search for ways to detach their bodies — from medical intervention to chainsaws— by the end, they resign themselves to their conjoined existence.”
Among the similarities, the suit alleges, is a “strikingly similar bathroom sequence where the protagonists become attached at the genitals and attempt to hide their intimate encounter from a minor character waiting just outside.”
The suit alleges that the films end with the couples pulling out a vinyl copy of the Spice Girls’ album, “Spiceworld,” as they accept their fate.
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