Stranger Things creators accused of stealing idea for the show

Matt and Ross Duffer, the sibling pair behind Stranger Things, have been accused of stealing the idea for the show.

Director Charlie Kessler is suing the pair, claiming that he met the Duffers at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2014, and pitched them an idea called The Montauk Project, based on a short film he’d made in 2012.

Though the pitch came to nothing, he says that they then took the idea and developed it into Stranger Things, which has become a hit series around the world on Netflix.

Kessler filed his lawsuit on Monday, and is seeking damages for ‘breach of implied contract’, and is demanding a jury trial to decide the outcome.

He also demanding in injunction against the Duffers using his concepts further, and the destruction of all materials based on the concepts.

The film Kessler made revolves around found footage of paranormal activity discovered at a government base.

Stranger Things was initially pitched to Netflix as a project called Montauk, and involves similar subject matter, though the action was eventually moved to Indiana.

However, Montauk, in upstate New York, has long been a hotbed of conspiracy theories, emanating from the decommissioned Montauk Air Force Station, found at Montauk Point.

An independently made documentary called the Montauk Chronicles was produced in 2014, and alleged that the base was used for secret government experiments, involving time travel, mind control and contacting extra-terrestrials.

Prior to that in 1992, a book, The Montauk Project: Experiments in Time, was published, featuring further claims of shadowy government experiments at Montauk Point’s Camp Hero.

An interview in Wired magazine from last year with Gaten Matarazzo, who plays Dustin in the show, connected the series with those stories.

“It’s based on a place in Montauk, New York called Camp Hero,” said Matarazzo.

“There was, like, rumours of secret government spies doing human experiments to fight in the Cold War. It’s based on that one government lab.”

Netflix and the Duffer Brothers are yet to comment on the claims.

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