A federal jury ruled unanimously in favor of M. Night Shyamalan and Apple on Friday, ending a copyright trial that saw the defendants accused of stealing elements from an independent feature in the writing of the streaming series “Servant.”
The seven-day trial in Riverside, Calif., which began Jan. 14., saw Italian-born director Francesca Gregorini seeking as much as $81 million in damages, alleging that Shyamalan and collaborators had lifted narrative elements of her 2013 film, “The Truth About Emanuel,” without credit.
Gregorini’s feature followed a delusional mother who treats a baby doll as if it were a real infant, along with a nanny who corroborates that false reality. Gregorini saw significant plot similarities between her own film and “Servant.”
Shyamalan testified Wednesday that he and the other creators of the show had never seen or heard of Gregorini’s film before the litigation, saying that the situation was “clearly, 100%, a misunderstanding.”
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“This accusation is the exact opposite of everything I do and everything I try to represent,” he told the court. “I would have never allowed it. None of the people that I work with would ever do anything like that.”
Gregorini testified last week that she was “shocked” when she first saw the trailer for “Servant,” and believed that her film had been stolen from her. In addition to the plot elements, she told the jury about a series of shots and scenes in “Servant” that she thought had been lifted, such as a scene when the nanny treats the doll as real even though she’s alone, and another when the nanny faints.
She said she was advised not to sue, and has faced career repercussions for doing so. But she said she wanted to take a stand against this sort of theft, which she alleged is prevalent in the industry.
“I wanted to hold the defendants accountable for what they did and to do my part so that this doesn’t happen to anyone else in my industry ever again,” she said in her testimony.
The defense lawyers argued there were many differences between the two projects. “Servant” was a supernatural thriller, they said, while “The Truth About Emanuel” was a coming-of-age drama.
When he was on the stand, Shyamalan was asked by his lawyer about the shots and elements that were allegedly taken from “Emanuel.” He said there was nothing particularly original, for instance, about a character fainting.
“We’ve all seen it hundreds and hundreds of times,” he said. “Hitchcock has done it in ‘Rebecca,’ ‘Notorious,’ maybe ‘Saboteur.’ It’s just a thing no one owns.”
The jury screened the film and the first three episodes of the show at the outset of the trial. They also heard from competing experts on filmmaking and Apple’s finances.
The verdict caps a five-year legal battle. The initial suit against Apple, Shyamalan and writer Tony Basgallop, among others, was filed back in 2020, shortly after “Servant” premiered on Apple TV+. The series has since concluded its four-season run.
A federal judge initially threw out the case, but the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals revived it in 2022, finding a genuine dispute over whether the two works are “substantially similar.” After Apple’s motion for summary judgment was denied in November, the case was ordered to trial.