10 Upcoming Movies That Are Already Doomed
2. Together
On paper, the new body horror film Together had everything it needed for easy success - a winning star combo in Alison Brie and Dave Franco, and rave reviews out its Sundance Film Festival premiere at the start of the year.
A bidding war followed between many major studios, with Neon ultimately spending $17 million to acquire the film, which they plan to release wide this coming July.
Everything seemed to be going swimmingly, then, until in May a lawsuit was filed against Brie, Franco, filmmaker Michael Shanks and Neon, alleging that the film plagiarised director Patrick Henry Phelan's 2023 film Better Half, which similarly focuses on two lovers becoming fused together.
While plagiarism lawsuits in Hollywood are regularly dismissed because it's common for two people to arrive at the same idea independently, this case gets a little more interesting given that Phelan allegedly pitched the film to Brie and Franco themselves, who turned it down because they wanted to produce it on their own.
The lawsuit calls Together a "blatant rip-off," citing that the script cribs numerous elements from Better Half, namely making a "near verbatim" reference to Plato’s Symposium and ending with a scene centered around the Spice Girls album Spiceworld.
That's... a pretty compelling smoking gun, and certainly a bad look for the film regardless of how the situation ends up being resolved.
It's unlikely to have much impact on the movie's box office performance, though could certainly condemn its legacy if Phelan's claims do indeed have merit.