Picture this: it’s early December 2025, and somewhere in a glittering Los Angeles screening room, Apple executives should be uncorking champagne. Instead, the room is empty. The projection booth is dark. A French thriller called “The Hunt”—a series that took months to film, millions to produce, and countless sleepless nights to perfect—has been yanked from existence. Not shelved. Not postponed. Erased.
Every trailer scrubbed. Every press release deleted. Every mention of December 3 wiped clean from Apple TV+ as if the show had never been greenlit, shot, or marketed at all.
When Ambition Collides With Accusation
What should have been Apple TV’s crown jewel in French-language storytelling became a cautionary tale in just 48 hours. “The Hunt”—or “La Traque,” as it’s known in France—was positioned as premium cinema: an eight-episode psychological thriller designed to compete with Netflix’s prestige content and Amazon’s international ambitions.
It had star power. It had production value. It had buzz. And then it had nothing but questions, legal exposure, and the suffocating silence of corporate crisis management.
The Bombshell That Changed Everything
November 27, 2025. That’s the date Clément Garin, a French media journalist, published a Substack post that would detonate the entire production. His revelation: the eight-episode series, which premiered in just days, appeared to be built on the bones of a 1973 American thriller called “Shoot,” written by Douglas Fairbairn.
Within hours, Apple’s legal team made a decision that stunned the industry—every trailer vanished from the app. Every promotional image disappeared from social media.
The Uncanny Echo From 1973
“Shoot” isn’t some obscure pulp novel gathering dust in a library basement. It’s a legitimate published work by an American author—and that matters. The story follows a group of hunters who venture into the wilderness expecting camaraderie and adventure. What they find instead is paranoia, violence, and a descent into madness when rival hunters ambush them. One hunter falls. Retaliation follows.
The real horror comes home with them, an invisible wound that never quite heals. A year after the book’s 1973 release, it was translated into French under a title that would later resonate in a production room: “La Traque.”
The Moment Everything Connected
Here’s where the story becomes undeniable: both narratives are built on nearly identical DNA. Group of friends. Hunting trip. Rival hunters. Gunfire. Retaliation. Survivors haunted by what happened.
According to Fortune and Deadline reporting, the plot parallels were so stark that Apple’s legal team went into overdrive the moment Garin’s Substack post hit the internet. .
How A $30 Million Dream Slipped Through The Cracks
The production had wrapped. Post-production was finished. Marketing materials had already been launched. Apple and Gaumont—the French production company behind the series—had locked in December 3 as premiere day. Viewers in France, the UK, North America, and beyond had set reminders.
How does a completed, marketed Apple series pass through the eyes of development executives, lawyers, and consultants without anyone flagging a potential plagiarism claim tied to a published 1973 novel?
The Man At The Center Of The Storm
Cédric Anger stands accused of a silence that may define his entire career. As the series’s creator, writer, and director, Anger had every opportunity to disclose the connection to Fairbairn’s work. According to Variety and The Hollywood Reporter, he didn’t. Neither to Apple nor to Gaumont.
Whether this was an oversight, an intentional omission, or something more ambiguous remains unclear—but the accusation alone has cast a shadow over a filmmaker whose reputation may never recover if the allegations hold.
The Faces Behind The Curtain
Benoît Magimel and Mélanie Laurent are no minor television actors. Magimel, 51, has built a career on nuanced dramatic roles that command respect in European cinema. Laurent, 42, has worked on major international productions, bringing prestige to any project.
According to IMDb and entertainment publications, both were being positioned as the anchors of Apple TV’s aggressive push into premium French-language content.
The Money Trail: Where The Investment Went
Reports from Fortune and industry sources paint a picture of significant financial exposure. A production budget likely in the $10–30 million range is typical for premium French-language streaming series with name actors and international distribution ambitions.
Add marketing budgets, trailer production, press junkets, and promotional partnerships, and the sunk costs climb higher. By the time Garin’s investigation forced the issue into the open, Apple had already burned through millions.
The Invisible Victims: 100–200 Voices In The Void
Behind every television production is an army of people whose names rarely appear in credits. Directors of photography. Sound engineers. Costume designers. Production assistants. Gaffer. Best boy. Line producers.
They were told not to discuss the project. They were instructed to wait. And they waited—uncertain whether they’d ever see their work broadcast, whether they’d be paid in full, or whether their involvement in this production would become a liability on their resumes.
Gaumont’s Careful Dance
When a crisis hits, how you respond matters. Gaumont moved fast, issuing statements to Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, and Deadline within hours. The company acknowledged the “temporary postponement” and said it was “conducting a thorough review to address any questions related to our production.”
The real message was in the careful phrasing: “We take intellectual property matters very seriously.” It was language designed to signal responsibility without admitting fault.
The 1976 Ghost In The Machine
Here’s where the legal landscape becomes exponentially more complicated: Fairbairn’s “Shoot” had already been adapted into a 1976 film directed by Harvey Hart and starring Cliff Robertson and Ernest Borgnine. That film created a paper trail. It established a precedent.
It meant Apple wasn’t just negotiating with an author’s estate—it was potentially juggling multiple rights holders, studios, and decades of accumulated ownership claims.
Apple’s Deafening Silence
As of late November, Apple had said nothing officially. According to Fortune, The New York Times, and other outlets tracking the story, the company didn’t respond to requests for comment. This silence—from a corporation that usually controls every word of its narrative—spoke volumes.
For the industry watching to see how a tech giant handles a plagiarism crisis, Apple’s refusal to speak was itself a statement: the legal exposure was real enough to warrant radio silence.
The Contract Trap: Who Pays The Price?
Legal experts quoted in Fortune and Deadline reporting have outlined the landscape. Screenwriting and directing contracts typically include representations that the work is original, backed by indemnification clauses that hold creators financially liable if plagiarism claims arise.
Whether Cédric Anger carried such insurance coverage, and whether it would actually shield Apple or Gaumont, remained unclear. The deeper question: If this goes to court, who will absorb the financial hit?
The Path Not Yet Taken
According to Apple Insider and industry sources, there is a theoretical path forward: Apple could negotiate a licensing agreement with the Fairbairn estate and publishers, legitimately releasing the series with proper attribution. It’s expensive, and it’s complicated.
Whether Apple will pursue it depends on calculations that haven’t been made public—calculations about reputational risk, financial exposure, and the value of a series that now carries the stain of plagiarism allegations.
The Rarity Of The Pull
In the brutally competitive streaming wars, pulling a fully completed series mere days before premiere is extraordinary. It signals something crucial: the legal risk was deemed too high to proceed, even temporarily. The decision cost Apple dearly in sunk production and marketing expenses, but proceeding without resolving the IP questions would have cost far more.
For a company built on precision and control, the decision to yank the series was an acknowledgment that something had slipped through the system.
A Reckoning For An Industry Built On Speed
This incident has forced Apple, Gaumont, and the entire streaming industry to confront an uncomfortable reality: even with armies of lawyers, development executives, and IP specialists, plagiarism can slip through the cracks.
According to The New York Times and industry observers, the pressure to produce content at scale—to feed the algorithm, to release something every week—may be creating blind spots in due diligence.
Uncertainty As The New Status Quo
As of early December 2025, there was no timeline for a decision on whether the series would be reworked, formally licensed, or shelved indefinitely. Gaumont said it was conducting a “thorough review.” Apple remained silent. The December 3 premiere date loomed.
The 100–200 cast and crew members waited for word. The Fairbairn estate—if they were even aware—held leverage.
The Lesson Written In Real Time
“The Hunt” has become a modern cautionary tale. It reminds us that in the streaming era, even a company with Apple’s resources, legal firepower, and global influence can be blindsided by an allegation that derails a major release.
A single journalist’s Substack post, amplified by trade outlets and social media, was enough to pull the plug on months of creative work and millions in investment.
The Series In Purgatory
A finished series exists. It’s edited. It’s scored. It’s ready. Actors gave performances they were proud of. Crews worked 14-hour days in French locations. And now it sits in digital purgatory, awaiting a legal resolution that could take months or years.
For everyone who poured their heart into “The Hunt”—for Apple, for Gaumont, for Benoît Magimel and Mélanie Laurent, for the 100–200 crew members whose names appear in credits no one will ever see—December 3 will be remembered not as a triumph, but as the day the dream stopped.
Sources:
The New York Times — “Apple TV Series ‘The Hunt’ Is Pulled Amid Accusations of Plagiarism” (November 26, 2025)
Variety — Coverage of Apple’s plagiarism investigation and series withdrawal (November 25–26, 2025)
Fortune — “Apple yanked a brand-new TV show just days before it was supposed to premiere” (November 25, 2025)
The Independent — “Apple TV pulls new French thriller over allegations of plagiarism” (November 25–26, 2025)
Apple Insider — Tracking of Apple TV+ decision and IP dispute details (November 25, 2025)