Alison Brie and Dave Franco are facing a $17 million lawsuit over their upcoming film Together, with serious accusations that the movie lifts core ideas from a 2023 indie project called Better Half.
On Tuesday (May 13), StudioFest—a New York-based film festival and production company—filed a suit claiming that Brie and Franco’s latest creative collaboration is “strikingly similar” to their own film, Better Half, and that the couple essentially copied it.
The lawsuit, obtained by multiple outlets, alleges that Together—a surreal horror-comedy about a couple who physically fuse together—mirrors both the plot and several specific scenes from Better Half, which was written and directed by Patrick Henry Phelan and produced by Jess Jacklin and Charles Beale.
According to StudioFest, the script for Better Half was submitted to Brie and Franco’s agents back in 2020 by the film’s casting director, with the hope of casting the real-life couple in the lead roles. However, Franco’s team reportedly passed. The lawsuit now claims that Brie and Franco orchestrated “an intentional scheme” to copy the movie’s concept and make it themselves, allegedly wanting to have the project re-packaged by their agency, WME, with a writer from within their network.
The studio is accusing the pair of ripping off not just the central idea, but many of the original film’s distinct elements, calling it “virtually every unique aspect of Better Half’s copyrightable expression.”
The producers reportedly first saw Together during its screening at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year and were immediately alarmed.
“As the audience laughed and cheered, Jacklin and Beale sat in stunned silence, their worst nightmare unfolding,” the lawsuit states. “Scene after scene confirmed that Defendants did not simply take ‘stock ideas’ or ‘scenes a faire’ but stole virtually every unique aspect of Better Half’s copyrightable expression.”
The documents go on to outline the alleged overlap in both films’ storylines. In Better Half, a man and woman have a one-night stand and wake up literally fused together. Similarly, in Together, Brie and Franco’s characters find themselves physically connected and must navigate life in this bizarre new state.
“In both Better Half and Together, the main characters struggle to navigate daily life as their physical attachment progresses and they start to control each other’s body parts,” the lawsuit explains. “While at first they desperately search for ways to detach their bodies — from medical intervention to chainsaws — by the end, they resign themselves to their conjoined existence.”
It even calls out nearly identical scenes, including a “strikingly similar bathroom sequence where the protagonists become attached at the genitals and attempt to hide their intimate encounter from a minor character waiting just outside.”
Perhaps the most eyebrow-raising detail? Both films reportedly end with the couple pulling out the exact same album—Spiceworld by the Spice Girls.
So far, neither Brie nor Franco has commented publicly on the lawsuit.
Together is still set to be released in August, but with a major lawsuit now hanging over its head, it’s safe to say this film’s rollout could get complicated.
