On May 13, production, financing, and distribution company StudioFest filed a copyright lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court alleging that Alison Brie and Dave Franco had turned down an offer to star in the studio’s film “Better Half,” and then developed their own concept of a body horror movie based on a co-dependent relationship, “Together,” with WME.
Now the director of “Together,” Michael Shanks, is firing back in a statement released via the X and Instagram accounts of the film’s distributor, Neon, which bought the completed feature for $17 million out of Sundance earlier this year, the biggest deal of the festival. The film had premiered to raves, with its sharp insights into what it means to be in a long-term relationship somehow then translated into grisly body horror visuals. Franco’s Tim and Brie’s Millie have been together for years and just at the moment that their relationship seems to have hit the rocks, something happens to cause them to start literally sticking together — to be incapable of leaving each other’s presence.
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Shanks called the accusation of idea theft “entirely untrue,” “devastating,” and that it had “taken a heavy toll” in the remarks that laid out his long relationship to this story. WME had previously told IndieWire that the lawsuit was “frivolous and without merit” and that the agency would “vigorously defend ourselves.”
“Have you ever been in a relationship so long that the line between you and the other person starts to blur?” Shanks said to kick off his statement. “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. 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.”
“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 the 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.”
