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EXCLUSIVE: Alexander Payne has lambasted a report from earlier this year that the script for his five-time Oscar-nominated film The Holdovers, which he directed from a script by David Hemingson, was plagiarized.
“It was the stupidest thing in the world,” Payne told us at the Sarajevo Film Festival when asked about the Variety report earlier this year, which dropped on the eve of the Oscar ceremony.
In the piece, Luca screenwriter Simon Stephenson accused The Holdovers script of being plagiarized from his 2013 Black List screenplay Frisco.
“It was irresponsible of Variety to report on that without having read the scripts and comparing them themselves,” claimed Payne. “Do you think The New York Times would have done that?”
He added: “I haven’t heard anything more about it and I wish him [Stephenson] well but there was just no merit to it. I mean, I didn’t even pay attention to it because kooky accusations come out of the woodwork all of the time and this didn’t even bother me but then it kind of kept coming, I thought, ‘Well, that’s dumb.’
“Meanwhile, I’ve spoken openly about the film I did steal the idea for The Holdovers from and it was a 1935 French film [Marcel Pagnol’s comedy-drama Merlusse]. That’s where I stole it from – I didn’t steal it from that guy.”
Payne, who took part in a Sarajevo masterclass on Sunday during which he teased his Election sequel and a Western film he has in the works with Hemingson, said that he and his Election writing partner Jim Taylor were still at the early stages of putting together the movie. “Jim and I are still conceiving it,” he told Deadline, while confirming that Reese Witherspoon, who plays main character Tracy Flick in the 1999 title, was still attached to the project.
When questioned if the film was still being set up at Paramount+, he said: “All I know is the deal was made for Paramount+, which is for streaming, and I don’t want to do that anymore. I like theatrical. You know, everybody gets dollar signs in their eyes when they hear about streaming, and I’m more interested in theatrical movies.”
As for the Western with Hemingson, Payne quipped: “We’re about 20 bad pages in.”
While Payne admitted that the theatrical marketplace has “always been a struggle for more human films” – the kind of films that the Sideways and The Descendants writer-director is so renowned for – but added that the current system feels “upside down” when looking at which films click at the box office.
“In the 1970s, when I grew up, it was the car chase movies that were the B pictures,” said Payne. “Now they’re all making Roger Corman films. They cost $200 million and make a billion. And what used to be the A pictures are now the shrink-wrapped arthouse films. So, the whole world is upside down that way. But every year, a few are allowed to the table.”
In television, Payne directed the pilot for the HBO series Hung, which he executive-produced.
When pressed about whether he would consider returning into the TV space, Payne simply said: “I wish someone would offer me a great series to direct because I would do it. But in terms of conceiving stuff for myself, my brain still defaults to movies.”
