Sekhar Kapur and Mr India (Photo Credit: Instagram)
New Delhi:
The news of remaking 90s classic Anil Kapoor-Amrish Puri starrer Mr India was not received well by the Bollywood celebs who were associated with the original movie. Director Shekhar Kapur unconvinced with claims that Ali Abbas Zafar’s Mr India trilogy is neither a remake nor a sequel to his 1987 classic Mr India in a new interview claimed that copyright of a film should rightfully belong to the director.
After informing his followers over Twitter that he will take the legal way to deal with the matter, Sekhar told Mid Day in an interview, “Where is the director’s ownership on the material he has created? It (the reboot) is based on what I have created. Now, I am in touch with lawyers all over the world to (tackle) the issue. It’s about creating a new understanding of creative authorship of the principal director of a film. The model is (followed) in many nations of the world, including Australia, and the US.”
Considering himself as the prime author of his work Mr. India, Kapur said he is the person who should be reached out to discuss rights to the future remake of the film. The filmmaker also found the decision of remake without his permission a violation of the constitutional copyright laws. “This is not about Mr India anymore.” added Gupta.
Talking about producer Boney Kapoor’s role in the new film, the filmmaker said nothing was told to him in a concrete manner and the lead cast Anil Kapoor too had no idea about it and was equally disturbed about the news. “It’s time to have a serious legal discussion here to reinterpret the copyright act so that it accords authorship of a film to the principal director. This is not directed at Boney, or the current director, or Zee Studios. It is directed at the act itself.” affirmed the India-British filmmaker, actor.
