An author files a lawsuit against Amazon Studios, accusing them of ripping off her 2014 book for their hit web television series which is fronted by actress Rachel Brosnahan.
- April 8, 2020
AceShowbiz - Bosses at Amazon Studios are being sued by a writer who claims the hit series "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel" is torn straight from the pages of her six-year-old book.
The popular Amazon Prime Video show is a period comedy-drama about a housewife, played by Rachel Brosnahan, in New York City in the late 1950s and early 1960s, who pursues a career in stand-up comedy after discovering she has a knack for it.
According to Jodi Parmley, however, the series allegedly steals several different creative elements from her 2014 book, "F.I.F.I. Financial Infidelity F**k It: The Mistress of the New Millennium".
In papers obtained by TMZ, Jodi says she wrote the book, and then adapted a screenplay from it, which she shopped around to several studios and executives who were supposedly interested.
While the writer doesn't specifically say she met with Amazon as she touted her work, she implies word eventually got around to them and, once the show debuted in 2017, Jodie claims it was a carbon copy of her own work.
She alleges Amazon ripped off the plight, stand-up routine, general plot points, and character traits from her narrative, and is seeking a cut of the profits Amazon made off the show, which has garnered critical praise and gone on to win several awards.
The "Marvelous Mrs. Maisel" is loosely based on the life and career of esteemed comedian Joan Rivers, and debuted three years after the comedian 81-year-old died of brain damage due to a lack of oxygen when she stopped breathing during a routine procedure at Yorkville Endoscopy in New York.
