美國電影導(dǎo)演亞歷山大·佩恩的《留校聯(lián)盟》被指控抄襲，原作者稱劇本與他的“完全相同”

One day before Alexander Payne’s heartwarming dramedy The Holdovers potentially wins the award for Best Original Screenplay at the 2024 Oscars, the film has been accused of plagiarism. 

就在亞歷山大·佩恩執(zhí)導(dǎo)的暖心喜劇片《留校聯(lián)盟》有望獲得2024年奧斯卡最佳原創(chuàng)劇本獎的前一天，這部電影被指抄襲。

Simon Stephenson, whose previous work includes Pixar’s Luca and Paddington 2, accused Payne and Holdovers writer David Hemingson of the “line-by-line” theft of his 2013 screenplay Frisco in emails and documents sent to the Writers Guild of America, which Variety has reviewed and published.

西蒙·斯蒂芬森之前的作品包括皮克斯的《盧卡》和《帕丁頓熊2》，他在發(fā)給美國作家協(xié)會的郵件和文件中指控佩恩和《霍爾多夫》的編劇大衛(wèi)·海明森“逐行”竊取了他2013年的劇本《弗里斯科》，《綜藝》雜志看過并發(fā)表了這些郵件和文件。

Stephenson’s script, which appeared on The Black List, follows a disgruntled children’s doctor who gets stuck looking after a 15-year-old patient, while Hemingson’s Holdovers tells the story of a disgruntled boarding school teacher who is left in charge of a 15-year-old student over the holidays. 

斯蒂芬森的劇本曾出現(xiàn)在《黑名單》上，講述了一位心懷不滿的兒童醫(yī)生因照顧一名15歲的病人而被困的故事，而赫明森的劇本則講述了一名心懷不滿的寄宿學(xué)校老師在假期期間被迫負(fù)責(zé)一名15歲學(xué)生的故事。

Stephenson emailed WGA senior director of credits Lesley Mackey on Jan. 12 to set up a time to discuss a “credits-related issue on quite a high-profile WGA-covered project," Variety reports. In a follow-up email sent after their conversation, he added, “The evidence The Holdovers screenplay has been plagiarized line-by-line from Frisco is genuinely overwhelming — anybody who looks at even the briefest sample pretty much invariably uses the word ‘brazen.’”

據(jù)Variety報道，1月12日，Stephenson給WGA的高級制片總監(jiān)Lesley Mackey發(fā)了一封郵件，約定了一個時間來討論“一個備受WGA關(guān)注的項(xiàng)目的制片相關(guān)問題”。在他們談話結(jié)束后的一封后續(xù)郵件中，他補(bǔ)充說，“《霍爾多夫》的劇本被《舊金山》逐行抄襲的證據(jù)確實(shí)是壓倒性的——任何人看到哪怕是最簡短的樣本，幾乎都會用‘厚顏無恥’這個詞。”

Representatives for Payne, Hemingson, Focus Features, Stephenson, and the WGA did not immediately respond to EW's request for comment. Payne and Hemingson declined to comment to Variety, and though Stephenson confirmed the authenticity of the emails, he declined to further comment to the outlet.

Payne、赫明森、Focus Features、斯蒂芬森和WGA的代表都沒有立即回應(yīng)EW的置評請求。佩恩和赫明森拒絕對《綜藝》雜志發(fā)表評論，盡管斯蒂芬森證實(shí)了這些郵件的真實(shí)性，但他拒絕進(jìn)一步置評。

Since then, Stephenson has been engaged in months-long discussions with the WGA in order to address his claims, Variety reports. Further muddying the waters is the fact that Stephenson alleges that Payne had previously received the script for Frisco in 2013 and in 2019, shortly before the director tapped Hemingson to collaborate with him on what would become The Holdovers. 

據(jù)Variety報道，從那以后，斯蒂芬森與WGA進(jìn)行了長達(dá)數(shù)月的討論，以解決他的索賠問題。更讓人困惑的是，斯蒂芬森聲稱佩恩在2013年和2019年就收到了《舊金山》的劇本，就在導(dǎo)演邀請海明森與他合作拍攝《老友傳》前不久。

Variety shared portions of two 2013 emails that two Hollywood agents sent to Stephenson, including one from United Talent Agency’s Geoff Morley that seemed to suggest that Payne had read the script. The email read, “I spoke to Alexander Payne’s exec Jim Burke directly a while back, and he said that Payne did like it but was not interested in prod [producing] or directing it.”

《綜藝》分享了2013年兩名好萊塢經(jīng)紀(jì)人發(fā)給斯蒂芬森的兩封電子郵件的部分內(nèi)容，其中一封來自美國聯(lián)合人才經(jīng)紀(jì)公司的杰夫·莫利，似乎表明佩恩讀過劇本。郵件中寫道:“不久前，我直接和亞歷山大·佩恩的主管吉姆·伯克談過，他說佩恩確實(shí)喜歡這部電影，但對監(jiān)制或?qū)а葸@部電影不感興趣。”

In 2019, Stephenson alleges that Frisco wound up on Payne’s radar for a second time after the screenplay was taken to Netflix, who then passed it on to Payne. John Woodward, cofounder of the U.K. production company Brightstar, sent an email to Stephenson and fellow cofounder Tanya Seghatchian that read in part: “Sorry to say that Alexander has now read but says it is not quite what he is looking for.”

2019年，斯蒂芬森聲稱，在劇本被送到奈飛公司后，弗里斯科第二次引起了佩恩的注意，奈飛公司隨后將劇本轉(zhuǎn)交給了佩恩。英國制作公司Brightstar的聯(lián)合創(chuàng)始人約翰·伍德沃德給斯蒂芬森和另一位聯(lián)合創(chuàng)始人塔尼婭·塞加奇安發(fā)了一封電子郵件，其中部分內(nèi)容是:“很抱歉，亞歷山大已經(jīng)讀過了，但他說這本書不完全是他想要的。”

In a separate email to the WGA board sent in February, Stephenson wrote that he could “demonstrate beyond any possible doubt that the meaningful entirety of the screenplay for a film with WGA-sanctioned credits that is currently on track to win a screenwriting Oscar has been plagiarized line-by-line from a popular unproduced screenplay of mine.” 

在2月份發(fā)給WGA董事會的另一封電子郵件中，斯蒂芬森寫道，他可以“毫無疑問地證明，一部獲得WGA認(rèn)可的電影的完整劇本，目前有望贏得奧斯卡編劇獎，卻被逐行抄襲了我的一個受歡迎的未制作劇本。”

“I can also show that the director of the offending film was sent and read my screenplay on two separate occasions prior to the offending film entering development,” he continued. “By ‘meaningful entirety’ I do mean literally everything — story, characters, structure, scenes, dialogue, the whole thing. Some of it is just insanely brazen: Many of the most important scenes are effectively unaltered and even remain visibly identical in layout on the page.”

“我還可以證明，在違規(guī)影片進(jìn)入開發(fā)階段之前，違規(guī)影片的導(dǎo)演曾兩次被派去閱讀我的劇本，”他繼續(xù)說道。“我所說的‘有意義的整體’指的是一切——故事、人物、結(jié)構(gòu)、場景、對話，所有的一切。其中一些簡直無恥至極:許多最重要的場景實(shí)際上沒有改變，甚至在頁面上的布局看起來都是一樣的。”