Did Dave Franco and Alison Brie's new horror flick 'Together' rip off another movie? Here's what both sides are saying.
Filmmaker Michael Shanks's debut featureTogetheris one of the most anticipated horror films of the summer — but it's not without controversy. The Sundance Film Festival darling — itsold for a reported $17 millionto distributor Neon following a bidding war — stars real-life husband and wife Dave Franco and Alison Brie as a married couple whose vacation takes a turn when (spoiler alert!) a supernatural force causes their bodies to merge. It's a funny, albeit terrifying premise — and one that another production company alleges was stolen from its film,Better Half. Shanks, as well as the talent agency behind theTogetherteam, deny the allegations. But that hasn't stopped people from talking about whetherTogetheris really a rip-off. WithTogetherheading to theaters on July 30, here's an explainer of the drama. Back in May, producers of the indie movieBetter Half, Jess Jacklin and Charles Beale,filed a lawsuitagainst the producers ofTogether, alleging copyright infringement. (Better Halfwas written and directed by Patrick Henry Phelan, however, Jacklin and Beale's production company, StudioFest, is the only plaintiff named in the suit.) According to an article in Entertainment Weekly, Jacklin and Beale claim that the makers ofTogetherstole the concept ofBetter Half, in which a couple "wake up to find their bodies physically fused together as a metaphor for codependency." While the main characters inTogetherare married and inBetter Halfthey are strangers who just had a one night stand, both films show how the couple at the center "navigate daily life as their physical attachment progresses and they start to control each other's body parts," per the lawsuit. The suit also notes that both couples attempt to use chainsaws to separate themselves from one another. TheBetter Halfproducers also note a number of other details that the movies share, including a reference to the Spice Girls, the professions of the main characters and bathroom scenes in which both couples attempt to hide their intertwined condition from a third party. According to the suit, the films also include references to Plato's Symposium, which dissects the meaning and significance of love. TheBetter Halfteam also claims that Franco's and Brie's agents at WMEwere sent a copy of the script forBetter Halfin 2020,but they ultimately passed on the project. It's worth noting that whileTogetheris described as a horror movie,Better Halfis billed as a romantic comedy. The Brooklyn Film Festival, whereBetter Halfpremiered in 2022, features the following description for the filmon its website: "According to Greek mythology, humans were once two-faced, four-armed, four-legged creatures, until Zeus split us in two, leaving us in an endless search for our other halves. Fast forward to modern day: Arturo, a hopeless romantic in search of true love, and Daphne, a serial polygamist allergic to commitment, meet for what should be a one-night stand, and quite literally find their other half when their bodies fuse during sex. The haphazard journey to come undone might just reveal what they'd been missing all along." Better Halfappears not to have received distribution after its festival run and is unable to be viewed online at this point in time. WME, the talent agency representing Franco, Brie and filmmaker Shanks, has vehemently denied theBetter Halfallegations. Speaking toIndieWire, a spokesperson for WME stated, "This lawsuit is frivolous and without merit. The facts in this case are clear and we plan to vigorously defend ourselves." In a joint statement on June 18, Neon and WME alleged that the plaintiffs are doing "nothing more than drumming up 15 minutes of fame for a failed project, demonstrated by the fact they contacted the press before filing their lawsuit, and did so without doing the most basic due diligence." They accused Jacklin and Beale of searching for a payday by making waves in the press. "We look forward to presenting our case in court," they said. That same day, Shanks, who wrote and directedTogether,shared his own statementon Neon's Instagram and X accounts,calling the accusations "devastating."He saidTogethercame from a "deeply personal" place as, like Franco's and Brie's characters, Shanks said he is in a long-term relationship, and that his own experience of the "entanglement of identity, love, and codependence" is what inspiredTogether. "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," Shanks said in his statement. "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." View this post on Instagram A post shared by NEON (@neonrated) Shanks also stated that he completed and registered the first draft ofTogetherin 2019 — beforeBetter Halfwas sent to Franco's team at WME — and began developing it with Screen Australia in 2020. Franco came onboard in 2022 after meeting with Shanks, and Brie, Franco's real-life wife, joined the project shortly after. "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," Shanks said. Check out the trailer forTogetherbelow: Plagiarism accusations occur fairly often in Hollywood, and they occasionally receive a lot of attention. Last year, the Alexander Payne filmThe Holdoverswasaccused of stealing elements of Simon Stephenson's scriptFrisco, which was on the 2013 Blacklist of the most popular scripts circulating in the industry. Stephensonfiled a complaint with the Writers Guild of America, which said it was not within the scope of the organization to handle. In the case ofFriscoandThe Holdovers, both scripts are available online, allowing people tomake their own judgments on social mediaabout the similarities — with many saying the scripts were too different to make plagiarism claims. Payne, who directedThe Holdoversfrom a script written by David Hemingson, spoke at the Sarajevo Film Festival in August 2024 about the situation. Payne claimed there was no merit to the plagiarism allegations, which never materialized into a lawsuit. "I didn't even pay attention to it because kooky accusations come out of the woodwork all of the time and this didn't even bother me but then it kind of kept coming, I thought, 'Well, that's dumb,'" Payne said, according toDeadline. Filmmaker and actor Justin Baldoni was alsoaccused of plagiarizing his 2019 directorial debutFive Feet Apart, about teenagers with cystic fibrosis falling in love, from screenwriter Travis Flores' scriptThree Feet Distance. Thecase was settled in 2022and Baldoni has not spoken about the situation publicly. Flores died in 2024. The legal threshold for plagiarism — especially in film and television — is quite high, even if someone is able to prove that the accused had access to an original work like a script. That's because ideas themselves cannot be copyrighted — only the specific expression of an idea, such as the exact script or dialogue. This means that two people can have very similar story concepts without it being considered theft, as long as the execution is different. And it's not unusual forsimilar films and TV shows to come out at almost the same time. The romantic comediesFriends With BenefitsandNo Strings Attached,aboutfriends who fall for one another after promising to stay emotionally uninvolved, both hit theaters in 2011. On the TV side,The WildsandYellowjackets— which debuted less than a year apart, in 2020 and 2021, respectively —both centered on teen girls who must survive the wilderness after a plane crash.
Did Dave Franco and Alison Brie's new horror flick 'Together' rip off another movie? Here's what both sides are saying. Film...
