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Matt and Ross Duffer – the creators of Stranger Things – will stand trial after being accused of stealing the plot of their hit Netflix series.
The showrunners, who are currently prepping season three of the hit show, have had their attempts to get the plagiarism lawsuit dismissed thrown out by an LA judge.
Director Charlie Kessler has sued the duo for allegedly stealing a key idea from his 2011 found-footage short film Montauk for their series.
Kessler alleges that he pitched a series based on his short to the Duffer brothers at a Tribeca Film Festival party in 2014 but they reportedly didn’t show interest. The director expressed plans to “actively develop a feature version” of Montauk , a paranormal tale set near a mysterious military base, to /Film back in 2010.
However, in April 2015, Netflix announced the series that would later become Stranger Things under the original title Montauk .
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Hidden gems: The best Netflix originals you might have missed American Vandal (TV series, two seasons, 2017–2018) Part satire of true crime documentaries such as Making a Murderer, part carefully observed portrayal of teenage life, American Vandal was criminally underappreciated during its two season run. It’s been cancelled now, but that doesn’t mean you can’t catch up with it, and then write Netflix a strongly worded email.
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Hidden gems: The best Netflix originals you might have missed One Day at a Time (TV series, two seasons, 2017–) In stark contrast to the off-beat, low-key comedy that currently rules TV – the kind that provokes a wry smirk rather than a hearty laugh – One Day at a Time is a big, bright sitcom filmed in front of an interminably enthusiastic studio audience. You wouldn’t have thought that the story of a Cuban-American army veteran / nurse / single mother – who suffers from PTSD and depression – would fit into this format, but it does so beautifully, tackling issues of sexuality, racism and sexism in the process.
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Hidden gems: The best Netflix originals you might have missed Easy (TV series, two seasons, 2016–) Joe Swanberg’s style of defiantly undramatic mumblecore isn’t for everyone, but if you enjoyed his earlier films, Drinking Buddies and Happy Christmas, you’ll find plenty to admire in this anthology comedy-drama series. Big-name stars such as Orlando Bloom and Aubrey Plaza crop up, but Jane Adams – who you might remember from Todd Solondz’s chronically depressing 1998 film Happiness – is the show’s heart, and Marc Maron is its jaded soul.
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Hidden gems: The best Netflix originals you might have missed Love (TV series, three seasons, 2016–2018) Community’s Gillian Jacobs is brilliant as the prickly, magnetic recovering addict Mickey, who forms an unlikely – and arguably deeply unwise – relationship with her nerdy neighbour Gus (Paul Rust). Despite Gus’s pathological need to be the nice guy, we’re never quite sure who or what we’re rooting for – which is what makes Love such complex, compelling viewing.
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Hidden gems: The best Netflix originals you might have missed Patton Oswalt: Annihilation (stand-up special, 2017) In 2016, comedian Patton Oswalt’s wife, the true crime writer Michelle McNamara, died suddenly in her sleep. That subject matter doesn’t exactly scream “stand-up special”, but out of his devastating loss, Oswalt managed to craft something funny and profound. Over the course of an hour, he processes his grief onstage, managing to find humour in the struggle to raise his grieving six-year-old daughter alone.
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Hidden gems: The best Netflix originals you might have missed Sacred Games (TV series, one season, 2018–) Based on Vikram Chandra’s epic 2006 novel, Netflix’s first Indian original series is a slowly unfolding gem. The first season of Sacred Games – which follows a troubled police officer (Saif Ali Khan) who has 25 days to save his city thanks to a tip-off from a presumed dead gangster – only covered one quarter of Chandra’s 1,000-page novel. As the show itself declared when it announced the forthcoming second season, “the worst is yet to come”.
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Hidden gems: The best Netflix originals you might have missed The Death and Life of Marsha P Johnson (Film, 2017) Though it’s been somewhat tarnished by claims that director David France appropriated the work and research of trans film-maker Reina Gossett, this documentary is nonetheless a loving, respectful tribute to gay rights activist Marsha P Johnson. One of the key figures in the Stonewall uprising (though her involvement was almost entirely eradicated in 2015’s critically hated Stonewall), Johnson modelled for Andy Warhol, performed onstage with drag group Hot Peaches, helped found the Gay Liberation Front, and then died under suspicious circumstances in 1992.
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The plot read as follows: “In the series, set in 1980 Montauk, Long Island, a young boy vanishes into thin air. As friends, family, and local police search for answers, they are drawn into an extraordinary mystery involving top-secret government experiments, terrifying supernatural forces, and one very strange little girl. Montauk is a love letter to the 80s classics that captivated a generation.”
The series – announced as being written and directed by the Duffer brothers – later relocated its action to the fictional town of Hawkins in Indiana. Kessler’s attorney states the pitch his client made to the Duffers formed a verbal contract by the trio “based on industry expectations” which in turn created an “implied in-fact contact.”
However, Entertainment Weekly reports that both Stranger Things and Montauk are inspired by the same real-life conspiracy theory surrounding government experiments in the beachy Long Island village in the 1970s.
If Kessler’s lawsuit is successful, the Duffer brothers and Netflix will be expected to destroy all materials based on the story they have allegedly plagiarised.
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Try for free “Triable issues of fact remain to be determined concerning what plaintiff said, what he meant to convey by his conversation and how the defendants responded before it can be definitively concluded whether or not an implied in fact contract was formed,” LA Superior Court Judge Michael Stern wrote Wednesday (read it here ).
Netflix has thrown its support upon the Duffer brothers, saying: “This case has no merit, which we look forward to being confirmed by a full hearing of the facts in court.”
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