Director M Night Shyamalan went on trial on Tuesday (14 January) over allegations that he plagiarised from an independent film for his Apple TV + series Servant.
The $81m (£66m) lawsuit brought by Italian director Francesca Gregorini accuses Shyamalan of taking key elements from her 2013 film The Truth about Emanuel.
Oscar-winning filmmaker Shyamalan, is best known for classics including The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable. His films are said to have cumulatively grossed over $3.3bn (£2.7bn).
His psychological horror series, Servant, follows the story of a couple who hire an eighteen-year-old girl to help them look after a child. It transpires that the child is dead, and has been replaced by a reborn doll, which the traumatised mother still believes is alive.
Gregorini alleges that the film shares substantial similarities to hers. She originally sued in January 2020, shortly after the series was released. The case was thrown out by a federal judge in the first instance, but was revived in 2022 by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals who found a genuine dispute over whether the works were in fact “substantially similar”.
Apple filed a motion for a summary judgment in November that was denied, instead a Judge ordered that the lawsuit would be settled by a jury.
The jury in the case will be required to watch both The Truth about Emanuel and the first three episodes of Servant, back-to-back before the attorneys of both respective parties make their case.
Shyamalan is said to have sat behind defence attorneys and producer Taylor Latham and Matt Cherniss, the head of programming at Apple TV+ according to Variety. British writer Tony Basgallop who created the series sat at the defence counsel table. Shyamalan is expected to testify through the course of proceedings.
Gregorini’s team must prove that teh works have both substantial similarity and access to the allegedly infringed work.
Starring Jessica Biel and Kaya Scodelario, The Truth About Emanuel, played at the Sundance Film Festival when it was first released. It did not have much success, grossing a paltry $226 in LA and $9 from one viewer in Philadelphia.
“Ms. Gregorini is seeking a windfall here,” Shyamalan’s attorney Brittany Amadi told the court.
“She’s seeking $81 million for work she didn’t do. The truth is the creators of ‘Servant’ do not owe anything to Ms Gregorini.”
Gregorini’s representative Patrick Arenz told the jury: “This is a simple case. There would be no Servant without Emanuel.”
The trial is expected to last two weeks.
