Alexander Payne Hit With Copyright Suit Over ‘The Holdovers’ Script

A screenwriter sued Alexander Payne on Wednesday, alleging that the script for “The Holdovers” was based on his unproduced screenplay set at a children’s hospital.

The screenwriter, Simon Stephenson, took his allegations to the Writers Guild of America in 2024, but was advised that the union could not adjudicate the issue and was referred to a lawyer. Payne later denied the allegations at the Sarajevo Film Festival, saying the claim was “the stupidest thing in the world.”

In addition to Payne, the lawsuit names as defendants “Holdovers” screenwriter David Hemingson, producer Mark Johnson, Miramax, Focus Features, and other corporate entities.

The suit contends that there are 46 “matched incidents” in the plots of the two scripts. As described in the complaint, Stephenson’s script, “Frisco,” tells the story of a dispirited doctor at the hospital who is stuck looking after a precocious teenage patient. The two develop a friendship on a trip to San Francisco, culminating in the doctor’s decision to quit his job and set off on a cross-country trek.

The lawsuit argues that the similarities with “The Holdovers” are more than mere coincidence, and that the structure and incidents of “Frisco” “were meticulously transposed into ‘The Holdovers,’ with surface cosmetic details changed.”

“Screenplays are often called the blueprint for a film,” the lawsuit states. “The Defendants built their film using ‘Frisco’ as their blueprint.”

Stephenson is an experienced screenwriter, with credits on “Paddington 2,” “Luca” and “The Electrical Life of Louis Wain.” He wrote “Frisco” in 2012-13, drawing on his experiences as a pediatrician, and the script was ranked third on the Black List — the list of the best unproduced screenplays in Hollywood.

According to Stephenson, his agents sought to interest Payne in making the film, and got him to read it in 2013 and again in 2019. But he passed, the lawsuit states, with his producing partner telling Stephenson’s agent that “Payne did like it but was not interested in prod or directing it.”

The suit alleges that elements of the “Frisco” script made their way into drafts of “The Holdovers” via Payne’s input to Hemingson.