Thriller maestro M. Night Shyamalan lent his name and talents to “Servant,” the horror series that ran on Apple TV+ for four seasons between 2019 and 2023. Shyamalan served as producer, showrunner, and sometimes director for the show, and now he and Apple are both in the hot seat facing an $81 million copyright lawsuit from an Italian filmmaker that says the show cribbed from a 2013 project of hers without permission.
The plaintiff is Francesca Gregorini, who claims her 2013 film “The Truth About Emanuel” has much in common with “Servant,” and jurors are now watching episodes of the series and the feature film to try and determine if her case has merit. Her attorney stated that the similarities are too marked to be coincidental:
“This is a simple case. There would be no ‘Servant’ without ‘Emanuel.'”
Dave J Hogan/Getty Images
The defense attorney representing Shyamalan and Apple, naturally, put it quite differently, casting Gregorini as a would-be profiteer looking for a quick payday:
“Ms. Gregorini is seeking a windfall here. 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.”
The case appears to hinge on a plot device that appears in both “Servant” and “Emanuel,” involving a grieving mother caring for a doll as if it were her own departed child. The plaintiff claims that her film has been widely available on iTunes for years and that even if “Servant” scribe Tony Basgallop can prove he was developing it before that was the case, his work did not include that plot element until afterward. There are also alleged interactions between Gregorini and an Apple executive named Max Aronson that the plaintiff says act as a link between her film and “Servant.”
A point raised by the defense is that “Emanuel” does not belong to the horror or thriller genre and that “[y]ou can’t own a fact, and you can’t own an idea,” which may or may not be disputed by the jury.
Shyamalan himself is expected to take the stand and will presumably defend his work on the series as being original and uninfluenced by the earlier film, which the defense pointed out grossed less than $300 in its extremely limited theatrical release.
This is actually Gregorini’s second attempt at winning a copyright victory over similarities between “Emanuel” and “Servant,” having had her case thrown out by a judge back in 2020 (she was even ordered to pay Shyamalan and Apple’s legal fees). But the case came back on appeal, and now it will be up to judge and jury to decide what happens next.