‘Stranger Things’ Creators Want Show Origin Lawsuit Thrown Out

The creators of Stranger Things are seeking to have a lawsuit against them dismissed after they say they’ve proved that their idea for the Netflix hit was an original one.

Matt and Ross Duffer, known professionally as the Duffer brothers, were sued by a man who claimed he pitched the pair an idea at a party for a sci-fi show set near a military base, which is the base plot of Stranger Things.

The brothers were sued for breach of implied contract in April by Charlie Kessler, who claimed that he pitched the brothers the show at an event at the 2014 Tribeca Film Festival.

The Duffers’ attorney Alonzo Wickers said that the brothers did not “manifest any intent to enter into a binding agreement” with Kessler and should therefore be granted summary judgement. Wickers added that the ideas Kessler claims to have shared with the Duffers were not novel and that there is no evidence that small talk at a party could be considered a business agreement.

“Charlie Kessler asserts that he met the Duffers, then two young filmmakers whom Kessler never had heard of, and chatted with them for ten to fifteen minutes,” Wickers wrote, via The Hollywood Reporter. “That casual conversation — during which the Duffers supposedly said that they all ‘should work together’ and asked ‘what [Kessler] was working on’ — is the sole basis for the alleged implied contract at issue in this lawsuit and for Kessler’s meritless theory that the Duffers used his ideas to create Stranger Things.”

Wickers also argued that since the conversation took place in New York, that state’s law should be applied in the case. In a motion for summary judgment filed Jan 30, the Duffers said that they began working on a film about an abandoned Montauk, New York military base in 2010 and had an outline for a television series including many of Stranger Things‘ storylines and characters in place by 2013.

One piece of evidence including a November 2010 email describes a project set in the ’80s that included a secret underground research facility, unethical experiments and a monster coming through a portal, all of which ended up being elements of Stranger Things.

“By filing this baseless lawsuit, Kessler unfairly maligned the Duffers’ reputation,” Wickers wrote. “The Duffers worked for years to develop a series that tapped into their fascination with the mythology of Montauk and their fondness for the 1980s. … Kessler had nothing to do with the creation of Stranger Things, and the Duffers respectfully request that the court grant summary judgment in their favor.”

Photo Credit: Netflix