Shyamalan Lawsuit Cleared, Found Not Guilty By Courts

In 2020, Italian filmmaker Francesca Gregorini sued American filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan, known for psychological thriller pictures such as The Sixth Sense and Split, for copyright infringement involving his Apple TV+ series, Servant. Shyamalan has been cleared of all charges relating to his copyright infringement case. The $81 million lawsuit claimed that the series, which ran for four seasons from 2019-2022, stole elements from Gregorini’s 2013 feature, The Truth About Emanuel. Gregorini also claimed that Shyamalan stole entire shots from her picture as well.

Shyamalan claimed that the entire infringement was a misunderstanding and stated during his trial:

This accusation is the exact opposite of everything I try to represent. I would have never allowed it. None of the people I work with would ever do anything like that.

The legal battle took place over a course of five years, and the judge originally threw out the case. Shyamalan claimed that he had never been aware of Gregorini’s movie prior to the litigation. This caused Gregorini to restate her claim by saying:

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.

After the jury viewed three episodes of Shyamalan’s series, Servant, they unanimously declared Shyamalan and his crew not guilty. This case was previously reported by MovieWeb.

The Servant is currently available to stream on Apple TV+ and its trailer is available here: