Hours before the awards are set to be announced, Oscars Best Picture nominee "The Holdovers" is being accused of being "plagiarised line-by-line" from an old, unproduced screenplay.
The accusation comes from "Luca" screenwriter Simon Stephenson.
He called the plagiarism "brazen" in a series of emails with the Writers Guild of America that were reviewed and first reported by Variety.
Stephenson claims the story came from his own screenplay called "Frisco".
The unproduced screenplay is a drama about a pediatrician and the 15-year-old patient he gets stuck looking after.
"The Holdovers" is a drama about a boarding school teacher and a 15-year-old student is gets stuck looking after.
The Alexander Payne-directed film is up for five Oscars on Sunday including best original screenplay. Variety says it is considered a frontrunner for the award.
Stephenson alleges that Payne likely read his script when it made the rounds in 2013 and later approached first-time film writer David Hemingson about "The Holdovers."
"The evidence the holdovers screenplay has been plagiarised line-by-line from frisco is genuinely overwhelming," he wrote in one email cited by Variety.
Stephenson alleged that only a few parts of "The Holdovers" are not pulled from his script, including, ironically, a section about plagiarism, according to Variety.
The WGA reportedly told Stephenson that the issue was not the guild's and he should seek a private attorney to sue.
The allegation was made after voting ended for the Acadamy Awards.
Stephenson and Payne declined to comment to Variety.
