‘Yellowjackets’ has been accused of ripping off a 2015 survival thriller

When Yellowjackets first premiered on Showtime in 2021, the influencers on the series were quite obvious. In essence, the show was a mashup of Lord of the Flies and Lost. Now, though, a new lawsuit claims that the TV series ripped off a 2015 survival thriller called Eden.

In a complaint filed Friday in California federal court, Entertainment Weekly is reporting that Eden Film Production LLC claims that Yellowjackets is “substantially similar” to the movie and violated the film’s copyright. The lawsuit names Showtime, Lionsgate, the show’s creators Ashley Lyle and Bart Nickerson, and two production companies as defendants.

The lawsuit cites “plots, setting, mood, pace, stories, characters, sequence of events, themes, and scene/dialogue similarities” between the two projects. Eden tells the story of a soccer team that crash lands in the wilderness and resorts to cannibalism in order to survive, much like Yellowjackets. The film starred Nate Parker, Ethan Peck, Jessica Lowndes, Diego Boneta, James Remar, and Sung Kang. It was written by Parker and directed by Shyam Madiraju.

The lawsuit also suggests that the two projects have “substantially, strikingly similar elements, leave little doubt that most substantive elements of Yellowjackets are copied from Eden.”

Both projects were inspired by the true story of a Uruguayan amateur rugby team that crash-landed in the Andes in 1972 and resorted to cannibalism in order to survive for 72 days in the frigid cold. The lawsuit calls for a jury trial and alleges that the creative team behind Eden incurred “significant” financial losses because of the creation of Yellowjackets.