New horror movie Together has been accused of being a "blatant rip-off" of an earlier movie in a new lawsuit.
The film, which has landed a perfect 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes, stars Dave Franco and Alison Brie as a couple who become physically merged together.
However, the new suit claims that the idea was stolen from the 2023 Patrick Phelan movie Better Half, which the plaintiffs claim was pitched to named defendants Brie, Fanco and their WME agents in 2020 before they passed on the project.
The suit alleges that the defendants "engaged in an intentional scheme to copy Better Half", and that they rejected the offer "because they wanted to produce the film themselves and have WME package the project with one of the agency’s own writers".
Better Half producers Jess Jacklin and Charles Beale claim they later viewed Together at the Sundance Film Festival.
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"As the audience laughed and cheered, Jacklin and Beale sat in stunned silence, their worst nightmare unfolding," the suit says. "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 suit further says that Better Half's "plot, themes, characters, dialogue, mood, setting, pace, and sequence of events" are copied in Together, and that the "totality of similarities between the two projects belies any claim of coincidence or independent creation".
Among the alleged similarities highlighted are the use of Plato's Symposium as a thematic vehicle, a bathroom scene where the characters become attached via their genitals, as well as the use of Spice Girls' Spiceworld in a scene accepting their fate.
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Better Half was marketed as a romantic comedy rather than a horror when it appeared at the Brooklyn Film Festival.
A spokesperson for WME called the suit "frivolous and without merit" in response, adding in a statement (via Variety): "The facts in this case are clear and we plan to vigorously defend ourselves."
Sam is a freelance reporter and sub-editor who has a particular interest in movies, TV and music. After completing a journalism Masters at City University, London, Sam joined Digital Spy as a reporter, and has also freelanced for publications such as NME and Screen International. Sam, who also has a degree in Film, can wax lyrical about everything from Lord of the Rings to Love Is Blind, and is equally in his element crossing every 't' and dotting every 'i' as a sub-editor.
