I keep hearing that the show was plagiarized, but from whom, and from what source?
‘Stranger Things’ Plagiarism Suit Withdrawn By Plaintiff Just Before Trial
“In his initial April 2, 2018 filing, Kessler claimed he pitched the concept for what became
Stranger Things to the Duffer siblings at a 2014 Tribeca Film Festival party. To add meat on that bone, the Montauk director also declared that not long afterwards, he handed over “the script, ideas, story and film” to the duo. Kessler’s breach of implied contract suit asserts that the Duffers used his material to craft what became the Netflix series, which during its early stages went under the working title The Montauk Project.
As is the standard PR response in such David and Demogorgon cases, the Duffers almost immediately slammed the plaintiff’s case as “meritless” in April last year in the first of several efforts to shut it down – with “full support” from the streaming service.
Having said that, last month Stern declined to dismiss the case. In his ruling at the time, he said he would let the matter go to trial because the Duffers hadn’t provided significant evidence of “independent creation” that they came up with the idea for
Stranger Things.
In that context, when the Duffer Brothers’ project with Netflix was first announced in 2015, it was called Montauk. With the name later changed for what one attorney in court today called likely “legal issues,” the project was also set in Long Island (it later shifted to Indiana), with other similarities to Kessler’s script including a missing boy, a nearby military base conducting experiments on children, and a monster from another dimension that looks like a toy
.”
I had high hopes for the show, I grew up hearing the Montauk conspiracy theories. Seriously disappointed in the trajectory it went after S1.