Issa Rae’s latest film success may have come with box office wins, but now it’s facing serious legal heat.
According to AllHipHop, on July 30th, Los Angeles writers Joshua Isaacson, Shon Oku, and Tyrone Perry filed a lawsuit claiming Rae’s movie “One of Them Days” is a direct rip-off of their 2020 screenplay “One of Those Days.”
According to the trio, they registered their script with the U.S. Copyright Office, then shopped it around in hopes of getting it produced. They say the script was first shown to producer Danny Hamouie in late 2023, then handed off to Roman Arabia and Xavier Charles of Green Eggs Go H.A.M. in April 2024. That’s when things allegedly got suspicious.
Charles, they say, had ties to Rae’s HBO hit “Insecure.” Just weeks after their pitch was rejected, Rae’s company Color Creative and Sony Pictures announced a new movie, “One of Them Days,” with a near-identical title and plot. The writers immediately noticed red flags.
The lawsuit claims the film starring SZA and Keke Palmer, which follows two friends trying to hustle rent money, stole their exact storyline.
“The underlying story structure is strikingly similar,” noted screenwriting expert John Brancato, who reviewed both scripts.
Despite the similarities, Hamouie, Arabia, and Charles are not named in the lawsuit. Instead, the writers are targeting Issa Rae’s team, screenwriter Syreeta Singleton, Sony Pictures, and TriStar for copyright infringement and “misappropriating Plaintiffs’ original expression.”
The film, released January 17th, 2025, made $51 million on a $14 million budget. Now, these writers want proper credit, legal fees, and damages through a jury trial.
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