Screenwriter Sues Alexander Payne Over 'The Holdovers' Script

Screenwriter Simon Stephenson sued director Alexander Payne on Wednesday, alleging that the script for the Oscar-winning film "The Holdovers" was built from his unproduced screenplay "Frisco." The complaint, filed in federal court, counts 46 "matched incidents" between the two scripts.

The suit names more than Payne alone. Defendants include "Holdovers" screenwriter David Hemingson, producer Mark Johnson, Miramax, Focus Features and other corporate entities. Stephenson seeks to prove that the overlap is not coincidence.

What does the suit allege?

According to the complaint, "Frisco" tells the story of a dispirited doctor at a children's hospital who is stuck looking after a precocious teenage patient. The two develop a friendship on a trip to San Francisco, culminating in the doctor's decision to quit his job and set off on a cross-country trek.

The lawsuit argues the parallels go deeper than shared premises. It contends that the structure and incidents of "Frisco" "were meticulously transposed into 'The Holdovers,' with surface cosmetic details changed."

The complaint reaches for a construction metaphor to make its point. "Screenplays are often called the blueprint for a film," the lawsuit states. "The Defendants built their film using 'Frisco' as their blueprint."

Stephenson's credentials are part of the case's subtext. He has credits on "Paddington 2," "Luca" and "The Electrical Life of Louis Wain," and he wrote "Frisco" in 2012-13 drawing on his own experiences as a pediatrician. The script ranked third on the Black List, Hollywood's annual survey of the best unproduced screenplays.

How did Payne allegedly see the script?

Stephenson's agents sought to interest Payne in making the film, according to the suit. They got him to read "Frisco" in 2013 and again in 2019. He passed both times. The lawsuit quotes a message from Payne's producing partner to Stephenson's agent: "Payne did like it but was not interested in prod or directing it."

That access matters legally. The suit alleges that elements of "Frisco" made their way into drafts of "The Holdovers" via Payne's input to Hemingson, who is credited as the film's screenwriter.

Has Payne responded before?

He has. Stephenson first took his allegations to the Writers Guild of America in 2024. The union advised him it could not adjudicate the issue and referred him to a lawyer — a referral that has now led to court.

Payne denied the claim publicly at the Sarajevo Film Festival, calling it "the stupidest thing in the world." That denial predates the filing, so his formal response to the complaint itself has not yet been made.

The case turns on access plus similarity, the standard test in copyright litigation. Stephenson has documented access: two documented reads, one in 2013 and one in 2019, plus an acknowledged appreciation of the script. He has counted similarity: 46 matched incidents. What a court must now decide is whether those matches reflect copying or the common building blocks of two stories about a reluctant caretaker and a sharp-tongued boy.