Alison Brie, Dave Franco’s ‘Together’ director slams copyright lawsuit

Michael Shanks, the director behind the Alison Brie and Dave Franco-led horror film Together, is speaking out against the copyright infringement lawsuit filed over the film last month.

The movie, the first feature from Shanks, stars Brie and Franco as Millie and Tim, a fictional married couple who are drifting apart. But as the story progresses, they become closer than ever in a literal, physical sense. The film, in theaters July 30, sold for a reported $17 million after a bidding war at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

However, in a suit filed on May 13, producers Jess Jacklin and Charles Beale claimed that Together is a “blatant rip-off” of their 2023 independent film, Better Half, stealing several plot and thematic elements, including the central concept of a couple who “wake up to find their bodies physically fused together as a metaphor for codependency.”

Although Better Half was written and directed by Patrick Henry Phelan, Jacklin and Beale’s production company, StudioFest, is the only plaintiff named in the suit.

“My client’s original work was stolen,” Jacklin and Beale’s lawyer Dan Miller alleged in a statement to EW last month. “The similarities between the two works are staggering and defy any innocent explanation. We intend to hold the defendants accountable, and look forward to trial.”

In a statement to Entertainment Weekly on Wednesday, Shanks called the allegations “entirely untrue,” and argued that Together is not just a script but “a reflection of something deeply personal.”

“I’ve been with my partner for over 16 years– almost half my life. That entanglement of identity, love, and co-dependence is what inspired Together,” Shanks said. “It’s not just a script; it’s a reflection of something deeply personal. Tim’s story, his love for Millie, his relationship to his family, his relationship to unfulfilled ambitions as a musician, is completely rooted in my own personal life. I lost my father at a young age in the same way our main character does, his trauma is rooted in my own. To have this called into question is not only deeply upsetting but entirely untrue.”

He went on, “I wish I didn’t have to clarify this, but I completed the first draft in 2019 and registered it to the Writer’s Guild of America that same year. In October 2020, I received development funding from Screen Australia to further the project. In 2022, my agent at WME introduced me to Dave Franco. From our very first meeting, we bonded over our love of horror, and I pitched him Together — a script I had been trying to get into production for years, with no luck. Soon after, he and Alison Brie came onboard to act in and produce the film.”

“To now be accused of stealing this story — one so deeply based on my own lived experience, one I’ve developed over the course of several years — is devastating and has taken a heavy toll,” Shanks added. “The suggestion not only undermines the work but also attempts to erase the emotional and professional journey I’ve taken to bring it to life. But more importantly: the facts matter. The timeline is documented. The drafts, submissions, and correspondence are all there.”

The director concluded his statement by saying, “I stand by Together, its origins, and the years of work it took to make it real. To make this independent film was an absolute dream come true that required years of hard work and no shortage of luck. It’s been the most insane whirlwind of good fortune to have collaborated with so many amazing artists to make this film a reality and I’m so excited to share it with the world later this year.”

Shanks’ statement comes after a May 21 letter to the plaintiffs’ lawyers, obtained by Variety. In the letter, attorney Nicolas Jampol urged the plaintiffs to drop the lawsuit, warning that if they pursue it further the defendants will seek compensation for their attorneys’ fees.

“Accusing people of copyright infringement — especially ones who have dedicated their lives to creating original works and performances — should not be done lightly,” Jampol wrote. “This is particularly true when the works are as obviously dissimilar as these.

A statement made on behalf of NEON, WME, Brie, Franco, and the director, was also sent to EW on Wednesday.

“The plaintiff is doing nothing more than drumming up fifteen minutes of fame for a failed project, demonstrated by the fact they contacted the press before filing their lawsuit, and did so without doing the most basic due diligence,” the statement reads. “There was zero outreach to the defendants to determine whether or not the Together script predated the plaintiff’s script, which it does.” 

Noting that Shanks registered the initial version of Together‘s script with the WGA in 2019, almost a whole year before the plaintiff sent its script to WME, the response adds that “Almost all of the alleged similarities were in Shanks’ original 2019 script, much of it inspired by his own life and relationship with his longtime girlfriend.”

“The plaintiff doesn’t care about the facts, they only care about making waves in the press right before a film’s release in order to get a payday. We look forward to presenting our case in court,” the statement concludes.

Better Half ‘s synopsis describes the film as “a surreal, satirical comedy about a man and a woman who have a one-night stand and wake up to see that they have become literally and physically attached — an attachment that seems to be progressing toward total connection/immersion unless they figure out how to reverse it.”

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The suit claimed that Brie and Franco were pitched Better Half in 2020 but that they and their agents at William Morris Endeavor turned it down. In emails reviewed by EW, the casting director sent a script and synopsis to Franco and Brie’s agents at WME in August 2020.

After clarifying whether the note was an offer for the couple to star in the movie together, Franco’s agent responded, “Dave is going to pass, but thank you for thinking of him.”

The lawsuit alleged that the defendants rejected the initial offer “because they wanted to produce the film themselves and have WME package the project with one of the agency’s own writers.” It highlights several alleged similarities between the two films.

“This lawsuit is frivolous and without merit,” a WME spokesperson told EW at the time in response to the allegations. “The facts in this case are clear, and we plan to vigorously defend ourselves.”