Dave Franco und Alison Bries ‚Together‘ Director reagieren auf eine Klage des Ideendiebstahls und nennt sie „zutiefst beunruhigend“
https://variety.com/2025/film/news/together-michael-shanks-lawsuit-response-alison-brie-dave-franco-1236435681/
Dave Franco und Alison Bries ‚Together‘ Director reagieren auf eine Klage des Ideendiebstahls und nennt sie „zutiefst beunruhigend“
https://variety.com/2025/film/news/together-michael-shanks-lawsuit-response-alison-brie-dave-franco-1236435681/
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FULL STATEMENT FROM MICHAEL SHANKS:
Have you ever been in a relationship so long that the line between you and the other person starts to blur?
I’ve been with my partner for over 16 years—almost half my life. That entanglement of identity, love, and co-dependence is what inspired TOGETHER. It’s not just a script; it’s a reflection of something deeply personal. Tim’s story, his love for Millie, his relationship to his family, his relationship to unfulfilled ambitions as a musician, is completely rooted in my own personal life. I lost my father at a young age in the same way our main character does, his trauma is rooted in my own. To have this called into question is not only deeply upsetting but entirely untrue.
I wish I didn’t have to clarify this, but I completed the first draft in 2019 and registered it to the Writer’s Guild of America that same year. In October 2020, I received development funding from Screen Australia to further the project. In 2022, my agent at WME introduced me to Dave Franco. From our very first meeting, we bonded over our love of horror, and I pitched him TOGETHER—a script I had been trying to get into production for years, with no luck. Soon after, he and Alison Brie came onboard to act in and produce the film.
To now be accused of stealing this story—one so deeply based on my own lived experience, one I’ve developed over the course of several years—is devastating and has taken a heavy toll.
The suggestion not only undermines the work but also attempts to erase the emotional and professional journey I’ve taken to bring it to life. But more importantly: the facts matter. The timeline is documented. The drafts, submissions, and correspondence are all there.
I stand by TOGETHER, its origins, and the years of work it took to make it real. To make this independent film was an absolute dream come true that required years of hard work and no shortage of luck. It’s been the most insane whirlwind of good fortune to have collaborated with so many amazing artists to make this film a reality and I’m so excited to share it with the world later this year.
This story is so weird and I’ve no idea whose right at this point
The fact that they read and passed on the other script is so telling; they wanted to grab the spotlight and appear as horror darlings…
Yeah, they stole it.
> The lawsuit stresses that the movies center around a couple whose bodies become physically fused together as a metaphor for codependency. They have identical endings, with the couple pulling out a vinyl record of the same Spice Girls album in a key dancing scene in which they accept their fates, the complaint alleges.
>“In both works, the main characters’ careers are also substantially similar,” writes Dan Miller, a lawyer for StudioFest, in the complaint. “In both, Character A is a teacher and Character B is a punk artist looking for their big break.”
>Other examples: Together and Better Half share a visual motif of two rodents stuck together as a foreshadowing device and a bathroom sequence in which the protagonists become attached at their genitals and attempt to hide it from a character waiting outside.
>”This is not a generic comedic trope — it is a highly specific, artistic choice that plays out in a nearly identical fashion with both works framing the scene using a visual shot of the minor character’s feet peeking out from just outside the door,” the complaint states. “Defendants used the same combination of the awkward physical attachment, the urgency to remain hidden, and the romantic subtext of the looming outsider to achieve a substantially similar feel.”
I’m curious about what the real truth will end up being here, but my joking response is – this story wants so badly to be the Baldoni/Lively style script drama lol