The producers and distributor of the film "Together" have found themselves mired in a legal quagmire, accused of allegedly stealing the premise of an upcoming thriller-romance movie that shone brightly at the Sundance Film Festival but sparked this controversy. In a lawsuit filed on Tuesday in the United States District Court for the Central District of California, StudioFest alleged that Dave Franco and Alison Brie declined offers to star in their 2023 film "Better Half," which StudioFest funded and owned the copyright to, and instead collaborated with another WME client to create a knockoff film. Both projects revolve around the fantastical narrative of a man and a woman whose bodies merge due to supernatural phenomena. Also entangled in this case are WME, alleged to have assisted in the copyright infringement; Franco and Brie, who serve as both producers and lead actors; Michael Shanks, who wrote and directed "Together"; and Neon, which acquired the film's rights for $17 million, one of the most expensive deals in Sundance history, with plans to release it in August.
According to the lawsuit, Patrick Phelan penned the script for "Better Half" in 2019, which StudioFest later acquired the rights to. The film's casting director then sent an email to the WME agents representing Franco and Brie, offering them the lead roles for $20,000 each along with the full script. After the offer was rejected, StudioFest proceeded with the production of "Better Half," which received a lukewarm reception when it premiered in 2023. However, when the producers of "Better Half" watched "Together" at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year, they were "left in stunned silence, as if witnessing their worst nightmare come to life."
In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Franco revealed that he signed on to produce and star in "Together" immediately after WME arranged a meeting between him and Shanks. His wife, Brie, who自称 "lurked in the shadows of the discussions," joined after Franco forwarded her the script. "I got a call from my agent saying, 'Hey, Dave wants to do this movie,'" Shanks recalled. "I thought, 'What are you talking about?' And he said, 'His wife Alison read it too, and she loves it. How do you feel about getting them both?'" Franco added, "I remember reading the script for 'Together' and immediately turning to Alison and saying, 'I think we should do this together,' because the characters in the film have been together for over a decade. I felt that our real-life relationship could translate well into that dynamic."
The lawsuit emphasizes that both films center on a couple whose bodies are physically fused for some reason, serving as a metaphor for interdependence. They share the same conclusion, featuring a pivotal dance scene where the couple pulls out a Spice Girls album from a record player and accepts their fate, as alleged in the lawsuit. "The professions of the lead characters in both works are also remarkably similar," wrote Dan Miller, StudioFest's lawyer, in the lawsuit. "In one, Character A is a teacher, and Character B is a punk artist seeking a breakthrough. The same is true in the other."
Other similarities include the use of two mice trapped together as a predictive visual element in both "Together" and "Better Half," as well as a bathroom scene where the protagonists' genitals are unexpectedly connected and they try to hide it from a character waiting outside the door. "This is not an ordinary comedic trope—it's a highly specific artistic choice that unfolds in nearly the same way in both works, framed through the feet of a bystander peeking through the door," the lawsuit states. "The defendants employed the same embarrassing physical constraint, the same urgency to hide, and the same impending romantic subtext from an outsider to create a strikingly similar atmosphere."
Miller said, "The similarities between these two works are startling and cannot be explained by any innocent coincidence." WME, in a statement, called the lawsuit "absurd and baseless." The statement added, "The facts of this case are clear, and we plan to defend it vigorously."
"Together" marks Shanks' feature directorial debut after gaining recognition for his acclaimed short film "Rebooted" and the blacklist script "Hotel Hotel Hotel Hotel." U.S. copyright law protects not general ideas—such as the clichéd plot of a disparate group of underdogs unifying to pull off a high-stakes heist—but the specific expression of those ideas. For instance, in dismissing a copyright infringement lawsuit against Showtime Networks and Lionsgate's Entertainment One for "Yellowjacket," the court determined that plot elements such as the death of the head coach, the survival of two children, their attempt to escape isolation, and the group splitting into opposing factions are common tropes in survival thrillers. However, the court has also ruled in other cases that alleged similarities between two works can be specific enough to be submitted to a jury for consideration. Neon, Franco, and Brie did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
