As fans count down the days until Yellowjackets returns for Season 3, Showtime is facing a serious legal storm. A copyright infringement lawsuit has been filed against the network, claiming that the Emmy-nominated series swiped its core idea from the 2015 survival thriller Eden, directed by Shyam Madiraju.
The lawsuit, filed on November 14th in a New York federal court, according to Deadline, also targets Lionsgate and the show’s creators, Ashley Lyle and Bart Nickerson. It alleges that Yellowjackets “borrows heavily from Eden to the point at which they are substantially similar,” and insists that their plots, settings, characters, and even scene-by-scene dialogue show striking resemblances. According to the complaint, the two works are practically identical in their key themes, storylines, and dramatic beats.
Eden centers around a U.S. men’s soccer team whose plane crashes on a deserted island after a World Cup match, transforming the players into desperate survivors in an unrelenting environment. If that sounds familiar, it’s because Yellowjackets tells a similar story—albeit with some significant differences. The Showtime hit follows a high school girls’ soccer team that crashes in the Canadian wilderness in 1996, and depicts both their harrowing 19-month ordeal and the fallout years later as the survivors deal with the traumas of the past.
The lawsuit doesn’t just claim overlapping themes of survival and dark transformation—it also points to specific similarities in characters, pacing, and the evolution of the stranded group’s dynamics. The complaint paints Yellowjackets as a direct lift, Deadline reported, raising questions about how much of the original creative spark behind Eden might have influenced the celebrated Showtime series.
This isn’t the first time Lyle and Nickerson have discussed the inspirations behind Yellowjackets. They’ve previously pointed to the infamous 1972 Andes flight disaster as a foundational influence. During that tragedy, members of a stranded rugby team resorted to cannibalism to survive—an extreme yet historically documented story of human endurance. Lyle described their series as an exploration of how “normal girls” could transition from ordinary suburban teenagers into people capable of unthinkable acts. She highlighted the show’s focus on the toxic hierarchies of teenage life, which become more deadly and literal once the girls are isolated in the wilderness.
For now, Showtime, Lionsgate, and the creators have not commented on the lawsuit. Whether or not the similarities are enough to sway a court, it’s clear that the stakes are high—the lawsuit demands both damages and an injunction to prevent further exploitation of the series.
Season 3 of Yellowjackets is set to premiere in 2025, and despite the legal entanglements, the buzz around the new season—much like the show’s famously chilling storyline—isn’t going anywhere soon.
