Although Stranger Things has only been around for three seasons, it has already been involved in some legal issues, as the Duffer Brothers have been accused of plagiarism twice. Stranger Things made its debut on Netflix in 2016 and was an instant hit with audiences and critics, who praised its tone, pacing, writing, and how well the 1980s were translated to every aspect of the show. Stranger Things takes inspiration from various works from the 1980s, such as those of John Carpenter, Stephen King, and Steven Spielberg, hiding various references to them and using some elements as a base for the characters’ adventures and development.
Season 1 of Stranger Things focused on the disappearance of Will Byers, Eleven’s escape from Hawkins Lab, and the opening of a gate to another dimension that let a dangerous monster into this one. Season 2 followed the consequences of Will’s time in the Upside Down and the threat of this dark dimension taking over the human world, all while introducing a new monster: the Mind Flayer. Season 3 arrived to reveal that the Russians were trying to open gates to the Upside Down too, and established a secret lab underneath the new Starcourt Mall. Stranger Things is all about dangerous experiments, a parallel, dark, mysterious dimension which houses different monsters, and how all of these are connected, which is a very appealing concept – but some believe it wasn’t entirely the Duffers’ idea.
Back in 2018, the Duffer Brothers were sued for plagiarism by filmmaker Charlie Kessler, who claimed the Duffers stole the idea of his short film Montauk. The film debuted at the Hamptons International Film Festival in 2012, and it has similar elements to Stranger Things, such as a missing boy, a military base working on mysterious experiments, and a monster from another dimension. Kessler claimed that he pitched his film to the Duffers at the 2014 Tribeca Film Festival, and later gave them the “script, ideas, story, and film” for a proper feature-length project, titled The Montauk Project. The Duffers, then, used his ideas to create Stranger Things, so he was seeking a third of the income they made from the series. The Duffers, on the other hand, stated they never watched Kessler’s short film nor did they talk to him about it, so he had no influence on the series. Two days before the trial was set to commence, Kessler dropped the lawsuit after seeing documents that proved the Duffers came up with Stranger Things independently.
![Stranger Things’ TWO Different Plagiarism Lawsuits Explained](https://static1.srcdn.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Stranger-Things-Season-3-cast.jpg)
That was only the beginning of the Duffer’s legal issues when it comes to the concept of Stranger Things, as they have been sued once more, this time by Irish Rover Entertainment. The lawsuit claims that the show copied various elements from a screenplay titled Totem, written by Jeffrey Kennedy, such as the “plot, sequence, characters, theme, dialogue, mood, and setting as well as copyrighted concept art”. The link between the two projects is a man named Aaron Sims, who worked with Kennedy on Totem and later created concept art for Stranger Things’ first two seasons. The biggest similarity between them is a character named Kimimela (Kimi), who in Totem has supernatural powers and helps her friends find the portal to an alternate, supernatural plane, helping them battle its inhabitants – which sounds similar to Stranger Things’ Eleven.
Netflix released a statement regarding this new lawsuit, explaining that Kennedy has been “peddling these far-fetched conspiracy theories for years”, and that they have already explained to him that the Duffers “had never heard of him or his unpublished script until he began threatening to sue them”. The company added that Kennedy had previously requested to be compensated for his stolen ideas, and when they refused, he filed the lawsuit. Kessler’s case went as far as it did, perhaps, because of the similarities between Montauk and the early plans for Stranger Things, which was originally known as Montauk. As for the second case, it’s yet to be seen how far it will go. If the Duffers took the idea from someone else or it’s entirely their concept is something that only they would know, but it’s not surprising that they have been dealing with this type of issues given the success of Stranger Things.