“Absolutely Not” Testifies Night Shyamalan In California Court To Plagiarism Claims

India-West News Desk

RIVERSIDE, CA – M. Night Shyamalan testified in court here on January 22 in an $81 million plagiarism trial over his Apple TV+ series Servant. Filmmaker Francesca Gregorini claims the series copied elements from her 2013 movie The Truth About Emanuel.

Shyamalan, who directed the first episode of Servant and served as an executive producer, categorically denied the allegations. “Absolutely not,” he said when asked if he had copied from Gregorini’s film. “This accusation is the exact opposite of everything I do and everything I try to represent,” he added, as reported by Variety.

Gregorini initially sued Shyamalan, Apple, and others in 2020, alleging Servant borrowed the “heart and skeleton” of her film, which follows a nanny aiding a grieving mother’s delusion that a doll is her child. The case was dismissed, but the Court of Appeals revived it in 2022, leading to the current trial.

Shyamalan testified he hadn’t seen Emanuel until earlier this month and argued any similarities were part of a shared cinematic language. “Everything in [Emanuel] has come from other movies,” he said, adding, “We’re all in a long line of learning from each other, from Hitchcock and Kubrick before us.”

Shyamalan described the allegations as a “misunderstanding,” emphasizing his filmmaking philosophy of grounded, original storytelling. “I didn’t need to see [Emanuel] because I knew I didn’t steal from it,” he said, comparing the claim to being wrongly accused of a jewelry heist.

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