The 'Stranger Things' Creators Are Being Sued By A Filmmaker Who Says They Stole His Ideas

The 'Stranger Things' Creators Are Being Sued By A Filmmaker Who Says They Stole His Ideas

The creators of everyone's favorite '80s-themed Netflix series, Stranger Things, are being sued after a filmmaker alleged that elements of the story were stolen from him.

The Duffer Brothers are now facing a lawsuit for the unauthorized use of concepts from two works.

In 2012, Charlie Kessler debuted his short film Montauk at the Hamptons International Film Festival.

The plotline of Montauk involves a missing boy, a government base experimenting on children, and a creature from another dimension.

The short film also features a police officer with a troubled past as one of its key characters. 

Two years later, Kessler alleges that he pitched his Montauk concept to the Duffer Brothers at a Tribeca Film Festival party.

According to the lawsuit, Kessler presented the Duffer Brothers with the concepts and script for a feature film called The Montauk Project, but nothing ever came of it. 

Now, Kessler alleges that the director duo used the ideas he pitched to create Stranger Things.

The lawsuit also claims that the Duffer Brothers had originally called the hit series The Montauk Project.

In an 2016 interview, the director duo admitted that the show was initially titled ~just~ Montauk.

The Montauk title comes from an even earlier work, however.

Both Kessler's Montauk and Stranger Things were created after a book called The Montauk Project: Experiments in Time was released in 1992.

The book talks about government experiments inside Camp Hero in Montauk, Long Island, and launched a number of conspiracy theories about the government base.

Kessler also alleges that Stranger Things was originally set in Long Island, but was later changed to Indiana.

Presumably, the point of this accusation is to further tie Stranger Things to Kessler's feature concept for The Montauk Project.

Ultimately, Kessler is suing for breach of implied contract as well as monetary damages for his alleged stolen ideas.

According to the lawsuit, the Duffer Brothers were under an implied contract not to use/share Kessler's ideas when he pitched The Montauk Project to them.

Neither the Duffer Brothers nor Netflix have responded at this time. 

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