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M. Night Shyamalan wins copyright case claiming ‘Servant’ show was plagiarized

M. Night Shyamalan arrives for the awarding ceremony at the International Film Festival Berlin 'Berlinale', in Berlin, Germany, Wednesday, Feb. 16, 2022. Invision via AP

PHILADELPHIA — A federal jury’s unanimous ruling has cleared filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan of charges he plagiarized plot points in his Apple TV+ series “Servant.” Last week’s decision marks the culmination of a five-year legal battle where Italian-born filmmaker Francesca Gregorini sought $81 million in damages, claiming that Shyamalan lifted ideas from her 2013 indie film “The Truth About Emanuel.”

Shyamalan, the Montgomery County-raised horror filmmaker now based in Willistown Township, testified on Wednesday that neither he nor his collaborators had ever seen Gregorini's film and called the situation “clearly, 100%, a misunderstanding.”

“This accusation is the exact opposite of everything I do and everything I try to represent,” Shyamalan said, according to Variety. “I would have never allowed it. None of the people that I work with would ever do anything like that.”

Gregorini, stepdaughter of the Beatles' Ringo Starr, claimed that there were too many similarities between her widely panned film and Shyamalan's Philly-set show. Both stories feature grieving mothers who become unusually attached to baby dolls as their teenage nannies play along, caring for the dolls like real babies.

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