2023-08-14 20:45:40
© Reuters. Netflix logo in Los Angeles, California 7/12/2023 REUTERS/Mike Blake/Archive
Por Blake Brittain
(Reuters) – Netflix (NASDAQ:) and the creators of its hit series “Stranger Things” have settled a lawsuit filed by a screenwriter who alleges they copied his script about a girl with special powers who fights monsters from another dimension, according to a document filed in federal court in Los Angeles.
Jeffrey Kennedy’s Irish Rover Entertainment agreed on Friday to drop its lawsuit against Netflix and producers Matt and Ross Duffer with prejudice, meaning the case cannot be reopened. Representatives for both sides did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Monday.
The trial in the case was scheduled to begin next month.
Kennedy’s company sued Netflix and the show’s creators in 2020 for allegedly copying his script for a project called “Totem”.
Kennedy said his work was based on one of his childhood friendships in South Bend, Indiana, in the 1980s. He said “Totem” and “Stranger Things” revolve around a young woman with supernatural powers who seeks to “rescue a loved one from being abducted by a monster and taken to an alternate dimension that is a shadow copy of their current reality”.
“Stranger Things,” the story of a group of teenage friends from 1980s Indiana battling creatures from an alternate dimension, premiered on Netflix in 2016 and became a huge hit on the streaming platform.
The lawsuit says that Kennedy’s script and “Stranger Things” have many similarities in their characters, plot, dialogue and themes. Kennedy accused an artist who developed concept art for both his project and “Stranger Things” of sharing his work with the Duffer brothers.
Netflix and the series’ creators have denied the allegations in court filings and said the stories are “objectively different” by “virtually every imaginable measure”.
“Most egregiously, Stranger Things features a core group of kids battling evil monsters while navigating the social issues of adolescence,” the defendants said. “Totem, on the other hand, features adults, and its characters and stories are deeply immersed in Native American imagery and mythology.”
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