Screenwriter says Netflix copied her 2019 screenplay in ‘Apex’

Filed 4h ago · Via Courthouse News · The Buffoon Desk

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Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: © Ralph Hammann - Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikimedia Commons

Screenwriter Amy Giaquinto is suing Netflix, Charlize Theron and producers, claiming the 2026 film ‘Apex’ copied her 2019 screenplay ‘The Only Way Out,’ which she had copyrighted and registered with the Writers Guild.

She alleges the film's opening climbing-accident sequence is essentially a scene-for-scene reproduction, and cites shared plot points, dialogue, and the widow's journey through the wilderness across more than 40 pages of comparison.

Giaquinto says producer Beth Kono passed on her script between 2021 and 2025 before ‘Apex’ was made; the film became Netflix's top English-language title worldwide for two weeks despite mixed reviews.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

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A producer telling a writer ‘we didn't quite connect enough’ and then allegedly greenlighting the same story a few years later under a different title is the kind of coincidence that shows up in court a lot. Nobody involved has answered a reporter's call yet, which tends to happen right up until a deposition makes them. The wilderness survival genre apparently has room for two nearly identical scripts, just not two paychecks.

Source: Read the original at Courthouse News → Scored: Sneaky · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

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