M. Night Shyamalan has a copyright case on his hands. The director who made it big The Sixth Sense (1999) has been indicted for his work on Servant (2019–2023)a four-part horror series for which he serves as producer. An Italian-born director is convinced Shyamalan stole some of the ideas in the series from one of her films.
Mother and nanny
The prosecutor’s name is Francesca Gregorini. In 2020 she filed a first complaint to the address of Servant-makers; the debut season had just been out for a while. Now, more than four years later, a serious lawsuit has emerged, which was initiated last Tuesday in a California court.
In her complaint, Gregorini refers to ideas from her film The Truth about Emanuel (2013). It is not very well known, but the leading roles are played by Kaya Scodelario (who appeared in The Maze Runner (2014) sat) and Jessica Biel. The story revolves around a single mother who, after the loss of her daughter, takes care of her doll (and eventually takes it seriously).
Also Servant revolves around a grieving couple, and shows how the door in the grieving process becomes ajar for an evil force. Gregorini’s lawyer opened the lawsuit on Tuesday by stating that both The Truth about Emanuel in Servant revolve around a “grief-consumed mother who takes care of a lifelike doll” and builds a bond with a nanny who plays the game.
Lucrative
“There wouldn’t be any Servant are without Emanuel“, says the case. “The defendants were able to watch the film and deliberately copied several elements. This was lucrative because it made them hundreds of millions.”
Although Shyamalan is heavily involved in the lawsuit, the main defender is series creator Tony Basgallop. He states that he started developing the idea for the series in 2005, which he said he derived from his own experiences. The idea was to create a kind of “anti-Mary Poppins”, where a family would get the dolls to dance after the arrival of a new nanny.
Shyamalan is reported to have said that he The Truth about Emanuel never seen, a claim that prosecutors consider “highly unlikely.” The case involves an amount of approximately $80 million.
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