Nathan Fielder Denies That His ‘Curse’ Promo With Emma Stone Parodied The One For ‘Anyone But You’ With Sydney Sweeney And Glen Powell

Nathan Fielder is a tricky one. Nathan for You ended with a hall-of-mirrors epic that left viewers with more questions than answers. There was that time he took over what should have been a simple How to With John Wilson behind-the-scenes video. Then there were the endless hairpin turns and ethical issues in The Rehearsal. When a new trailer for his latest show, The Curse, dropped Friday, it began with what seemed like a parody of another high-profile ad. Now he’s denying it was. Or is he?

Per The AV Club, the alleged lampoon in question finds Fielder and co-star Emma Stone doing one of those awkward intros where they pretend to have chemistry but mostly remind viewers of the Bruce Valanch-scripted banter presenters do at the Academy Awards. Thing is, it dropped around the same time as a similar prelude Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell did for the forthcoming rom-com Anyone But You.

There are an awful lot of similarities. Both feature a tall guy and a shorter female standing in front of a greyish background. Even their clothes have similar colors. Were Fielder and Stone consciously making fun of Sweeney and Powell (or at least the presumably contractual requirement they had to fulfill)? Was it the other way around?

Whatever the case, Fielder is alleging that he’s as confused as you are.

In a post first dropped on his Instragram account, Fielder claims he and Stone shot their promo “over six months ago,” so there’s no way they could have banged out a quickie parody of an ad that only recently went live. In fact, he says he’s “seriously concerned that the marketing team at Sony Pictures somehow saw our promo and copied it.” He also declared that he “personally will not be pursuing legal action” over it, though it’s “unfortunate that Sydney, Glen, Emma, and myself have been put in this situation.” He also said he and Stone will “personally be booking front row seats at Anyone But You on opening night.”

That clears that up. Or does it? Fielder has a habit of misleading the public about the real Nathan Fielder. For instance, he and Stone recently went on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, where he debuted the “real” Nathan Fielder: a cool dude who wears sunglasses, a beret, an earring, and lots of black. Could this be some coordination between the Curse and Anyone But You teams to make some meta joke? Is anything real?

For now, though, The Curse airs new episodes on Showtime on Sundays while Anyone But You hits theaters on December 15.

(Via The AV Club)