Alison Brie and Dave Franco are facing a copyright infringement lawsuit over Together, their independent horror film that sold for a reported $17 million after a bidding war at Sundance.

The suit filed on Tuesday alleges that the film is a “blatant rip-off” of a 2023 independent film titled Better Half. The suit claims that Together allegedly steals the high concept idea of a couple who finds themselves physically fused together. Numerous other plot and thematic elements, including an alleged “near verbatim” reference to Plato’s Symposium were claimed in the suit as well.

Franco and Brie are married and have collaborated on several projects together. The suit claims the couple was allegedly pitched Better Half in 2020, but they and their WME agents allegedly turned it down. The producers of Better Half, Jess Jacklin and Charles Beale, allegedly heard about Together the day before it screened at Sundance, and allegedly decided to view it to assess the similarities.

The suit states, “As the audience laughed and cheered, Jacklin and Beale sat in stunned silence, their worst nightmare unfolding.” The suit continues, “Scene after scene confirmed hat Defendants did not simply take ‘stock ideas’ or ‘scenes a faire’ but stole virtually every unique aspect of Better Half‘s copyrightable expression.”

The lawsuit alleges that the defendants engaged in an “intentional scheme” to copy their film, and Brie and Franco rejected the initial offer “because they wanted to produce the film themselves and have WME package the project with one of the agency’s own writers.” Neon acquired the film at Sundance and is set to release on Aug. 1. The distributor company is named as a defendant along with Brie, Franco, WME and writer-director Michael Shanks.

A WME spokesperson called the suit “frivolous and without merit.” The response stated, “The facts in this case are clear and we plan to vigorously defend ourselves.”

Better Half was written and directed by Patrick Henry Phelan, who worked as an assistant director in New York before getting his MFA in screenwriting at USC. The film was his feature debut. The production company, StudioFest is the only named plaintiff in the suit.

According to the suit, the casting director on Better Half allegedly emailed a script and synopsis to Franco and Brie’s agents at WME in August 2020, also offering the couple to star in the film. Franco’s agent allegedly quickly responded that, “Dave is going to pass, but thank you for thinking of him.”

The synopsis of Better Half was described as “a surreal, satirical comedy about a man and a woman who have a one-night stand, and wake up to see that they have become literally and physically attached.” The email allegedly did not describe it as a horror film. When it appeared at the Brooklyn Film Festival, it was allegedly billed as a romantic comedy.

The suit also describes numerous similarities between the two films. In both films, “The main characters struggles to navigate daily life as their physical attachment progresses and they start to control each other’s body parts,” the complaint claims. “While at first they desperately search for ways to detach their bodies — from medical intervention to chainsaws— by the end, they resign themselves to their conjoined existence.”

Among the similarities, the suit alleges there is a “strikingly similar bathroom sequence where the protagonists become attached at the genitals and attempt to hide their intimate encounter from a minor character waiting just outside.” The suit also alleges that the films end with the couples pulling out a vinyl copy of the Spice Girls’ album, Spiceworld, as they accept their fate.