Duffer Brothers Accused Of Lifting ‘Stranger Things’ From 2012 Short Film
April 3, 2018
Duffer Brothers Accused Of Lifting ‘Stranger Things’ From 2012 Short Film
The director of a 2012 short film called Montauk is claiming the Duffer Brothers lifted ideas about government secrets from his festival entry to create Netflix’s Stranger Things.
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Charlie Kessler, who directed the short film Montauk that debuted at the Hamptons International Film Festival, filed a lawsuit Tuesday claiming he pitched the Montauk concept to Matt and Ross Duffer in April 2014 at a Tribeca Film Festival party and later presented “materials” to the duo that they allegedly used to develop their hit series.
Kessler says the Duffers used the working title The Montauk Project during the early stages of Stranger Things, which was originally set in the Long Island town of the title (a setting later changed to Indiana).
Kessler’s Montauk storyline involved a missing boy, a nearby military base conducting experiments on children and a monster from another dimension that looks like a toy. Both Montauk and Stranger Things came after a 1992 book called The Montauk Project: Experiments in Time about secret government experiments at a place called Camp Hero in Montauk, Long Island, launching numerous conspiracy theories, according to Variety.
Kessler is seeking monetary damages and a jury trial. Deadline has reached out to Netflix.