‘The Holdovers’ Accused of Plagiarism by ‘Luca’ Screenwriter

Watching the second round of this fight was like seeing a boxer struggle back to his feet right at the last second before being counted out, only to immediately have a piano full of manure fall onto his head.

I think it's worth opening up discussion about this claim again.

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What is that? A podcast or something? We’re using someone on YouTube to debunk the claims, now?

There are links to the sources as well if you want to dig deeper, but I found the video very insightful and straightforward about why the plagiarism claim doesn't hold much water. In fact there are so many differences that at times it really seems like Stephenson is just grasping at straws in the hopes that he will build a stronger case.

If there's any movie The Holdovers is at least closer in line with it's Merlusse:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0026703/?ref_=ttcnn

But don't take my word for it. You can do the research yourself as well, just saying I don't find the case very believable.

https://deadline.com/2024/08/alexand...ns-1236044671/



Oh look 6 months later the thing I said turns out to be true. Perhaps certain people shouldn't just blindly post Variety articles on the forum. This was a smear campaign by a patsy...notice he didn't end up suing.

Nah, what I said turned out to be true.

What I got from the article was "Guy accused of a thing says he didn't do it."

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You read the article correctly.

I took another look at the article just to refresh my memory - didn't remember all of the details.

Payne and Hemingson didn't say "they didn't do it" - they simply declined to comment on the matter.

Declining to comment is a bit different from outright contesting an allegation. Sometimes it is done out of a sincere belief an accusation should not even be dignified with a denial, and sometimes not commenting is done so as to not to say something that could potentially be challenged with evidence in a court of law.

But if they felt the whole thing was a misunderstanding, they could certainly have given their side of the story and then the headline might have read much differently.

I don’t want to keep beating this dead horse, but There’s nothing in the article that definitively absolves Payne of plagiarism. It’s just him denying the allegations.

That's absolutely true.

And if, say, this matter might have been settled out of court, then that's something that we'll probably never know, because the accuser would have almost certainly signed an NDA along with the settlement, in which he agreed never to discuss the matter publicly again.

I'm not saying that's what happened, I'm just saying that if that had been what happened, we would never hear anything about it.

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1776787/?ref_=tt_ov_wr_3


So an update a year later, especially with all the news about smear campaigns it turns out the accuser will in fact work again. Shock of shockers it's for a giant corporate film (WB) that had the streaming rights to Oppenheimer. So once again confirming what I suspected from the start this was a campaign against the film and the small production company by a large Hollywood corporation to steal the Oscar.

Actually had to make this post 4 times...anyways I think it's important to bring this up because with smear campaigns you should always follow the money. This was a small production company that got rolled over by the giant ones.

There's absolutely no correlation between the fact that Stephenson is directing another film and the legitimacy of his accusations towards The Holdovers. Not sure where the correlation is. I'm also not sure why you keep reviving this thread just to beat a dead horse.

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Agree 100% (although Stephenson got hired to write, not direct).

If anything, it shows that the industry trusts him and doesn't believe he made a false accusation.

Furthermore, the simple act of sending a private email to the WGA doesn't seem like a "smear campaign" in any way, shape, or form.

I cleaned your coat:

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I destroyed the dastardly dairy dame! I made mad milk maid mulch!

I hate insomnia. Oh yeah. Last year I had four cases of it, and each time it lasted three months.

I don't care. I loved The Holdovers and it's the only thing that matters.

If the ability to process and interpret evidence isn't there, then no amount of evidence matters. I've had lots of conversations about conspiracies, and lack of information is never the problem: they have tons of info. What they don't have is the ability to consider it dispassionately or entertain counterfactuals.

To be fair, sometimes they do have the ability, but they often paint themselves into an emotional corner where using it would be extremely painful, either because they've made it part of their identity or because they've pointlessly attached their reputation or ego to the question. Once that's happened, meaningful discussion is almost impossible, because you no longer have the option of arguing about facts, or even interpretations: they've forced a situation where any argument is a direct assault on their sense of self.

Because he made a promise to come back here and show how everyone was wrong and he was right.



And now he has the IMDB links to prove it!