Modern Family Was So Similar To Another Show It Got Sued For Plagiarism
Unique characters turned out not to be so unique.
From 2009 to 2020, Modern Family boasted stable ratings and a lot of fans love for the characters. The writers had enough ideas for funny and absurd situations for full eleven seasons.
In 2012, the project was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Series and won the Emmy for Best Comedy Series five years in a row. Its cast has been nominated countless times for Golden Globes and Emmys.
No wonder there were so many nominations, as each of the characters is very well-written.
The obscenely beautiful and very charismatic Sofia Vergara, the charming Ty Burrell, the hilarious Eric Stonestreet and the adorable Jesse Tyler Ferguson have unsurpassed comedic talents.
And the performances of Ed O'Neill and Julie Bowen were beyond praise.
However, it was these characters and the plot of the show itself that became the basis for a lawsuit filed by Martin Alexander against the show's creators in 2010.
Martin claimed that Modern Family copied his own concept for the show, called Loony Ben, which was copyrighted at the time.
According to the prosecutor, the show copied his idea of non-traditional families and also repeated his characters: white parents with an Asian daughter, a couple of a Latino woman and a white man, and others.
In addition, the same actors, such as Sofia Vergara, were to appear in Loony Ben. However, the case was dismissed because the judge found that the similarity was not significant enough to warrant a trial.
The actors themselves have also sued the show. In 2012, they sued 20th Century Fox for termination of their contract. The suit was filed by Ty Burrell, Julie Bowen, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Eric Stonestreet and Sofia Vergara.
Later, Ed O'Neill joined them, too. However, the actors' ultimate goal was not to end their contract with the studio, but to increase their fees.
The studio intended to pay each of them $150,000 per episode of the fourth season, $200,000 per episode of the fifth season and $225,000 per episode of the sixth season.
By the ninth season, the fees per episode would have been $325,000. However, the actors were not satisfied with this proposal.
The studio soon acceded to the actors' demands, with salaries rising to $350,000 by the eighth season.