The makers of Sunny Singh’s Ujda Chaman can file a case against the makers of Ayushmann Khurrana and Bhumi Pednekar starrer Bala against copyright issues
Bala and Ujda Chaman controversy has taken them into legal trouble. Kumar Mangat and Abhishek Pathak directorial, ‘Ujda Chaman’ actor Sunny Singh, and Dinesh Vijan directorial Bala starrer national award-winning actor Ayushmann Khurrana. Both the films are based on premature balding and are locked in legal trouble against copyright violation. October 1st when the trailer of Ujda Chaman was released, it mentioned on the trailer the release date of the Ujda Chaman as November 8th, a week before the release of Bala. But yesterday, the makers of Bala preponed its release date to November 7th, a week before their original release date.
The sudden changes in the release date of Bala and Ujda Chaman “extremely unethical and wrong”, his son Abhishek Pathak, who is making his directorial debut with Ujda Chaman said
Abhishek Pathak points out that his directorial ‘Ujda Chaman’ is the official remake of the 2017 Kannada film, ‘Ondu Motteya’. said,
“I believe good stories need to be seen by maximum number of people. My company Panorama Studios always looks out for such gems… Alone and Drishyam are official remakes by us. We acquired Ondu Motteya Kathe in the last quarter of 2018, with a clear intention to release my version within a year. My team suggested November 8 for release and our campaign commenced. In contrast, the Bala team has been changing their release date; from November 22 to November 15 to November 7, which is a day before my film. Not sure how this will help, I think it harms both films and the industry at large.”
Abhishek Pathak further added, “At least keep a healthy competition. In this case, even their poster design is similar. In fact, going by the two trailers, their content looks similar to the original Kannada film and my film, including the closing dialogue and the way both characters flip their respective cap. It’s obvious where their inspiration came from, but while we have the official remake rights of Ordu Motteya Kathe, they have tried to maneuver the screenplay by flipping a few things, like in the original, there’s a girl selling a hair-growing product to bald people, in Bala you see Ayushmann selling products to dusky girls.”
Legal Trouble
He further stated that this is a copyright violation on the part of Bala makers,
“We are discussing it with our legal team and will take action in a few days. This is a clear case of copyright violation. I can understand two films around a bald character releasing within a short span of time; but in this case, there are striking similarities with my film and the original whose rights are with me.”
When Dinesh Vijay was contacted in contact with these allegations by Abhishek Pathak; his production house Maddock films released a statement,
“Bala has been in the works for several months now as it has been widely reported in the press. The film is very close to our hearts as a project because we want to meaningfully contribute to the conversation on challenging social themes of our times; like the widespread stigmatisation of baldness and dark skin. If there are multiple films which deal with one of these themes, it’s all the more variety for the viewers to choose from which can never be a bad thing. It’s quite unfortunate if someone, especially a fellow filmmaker, sees this as anything but a positive for audiences. Maddock stands firmly by the originality of its film; and will back it’s project all the way, including through legal recourse if need be.”
As of now there is no confirmation on the court controversy that is going on between Bala and Ujda Chaman upon copyright issues. Now you decide which film you are excited to watch, tell us in the comment section below!
