‘Magadheera’ makers withdraw case; ‘Raabta’ to release

‘Magadheera’ makers withdraw case; ‘Raabta’ to release

Lawyers for Raabta argue that makers of the Telugu movie refused an offer to watch the entire movie to ascertain differences

Dinesh Vijan’s directorial debut Raabta was at stake after the makers of Telugu film Magadheera slapped a case on the makers citing plagiarism. But on Thursday, the makers of Magadheera withdrew the case after a five-hour hearing at a court in Hyderabad, paving the way for Raabta’s release on June 9 (today).

The movie stars Sushant Singh Rajput, Kriti Sanon, Jim Sarbh and Rajkummar Rao and is produced by Dinesh and Bhushan Kumar.

When Sakal Times contacted the makers of Raabta, they said, “Our counsellor presented our case on June 7 in a court in Hyderabad where we presented all the facts and pointed out that the two films are not similar at all. The makers of Magadheera understood the point and withdrew the case. We have submitted a copy of the script to the court.”
In a statement issued by Allu Arvind, producer of Magadheera said, “Yesterday both the parties representing Magadheera and Raabta have settled the ongoing legal dispute amicably outside the court. Hence, Geetha Arts has officially withdrawn the case.”

Three weeks ago, Arvind had sent a legal notice to Raabta producers pointing that the latter is picked from their film. Sources from Raabta crew said, “We requested Allu to watch the rough-cut so that he could compare it with Magadheera to ascertain the difference, but he wasn’t interested. Then an offer was made to put the compensation into escrow with the esteemed court until a verdict was announced. He wasn’t even interested in entertaining this.”

The sources further explained, “Raabta’s lawyers argued that the background of the lead characters, their storyline development, the role of villain, the foreign locations and most importantly, the finale of the film are completely and materially different from Magadheera. They pointed out that the concerns of the makers of Magadheera that the iconic 100-warriors scene being lifted in Raabta is completely unfounded as there was no such scene either in the film or the trailer. Unlike Magadheera, the villainous character in Raabta was in fact an anti-hero and a parallel interest point for the heroine. Even in the back story depicting the past life of the characters, the hero of the film actually plays a negative role for most part.”

The makers further pointed out the similarities, even if there were any, were purely on themes that are generic to every film made on reincarnation of two lovers such as Prem, Hamesha, Om Shanti Om, Kudrat etc. “In fact, the makers cited a list of more than 100 films on the theme of reincarnation,” added the source.

Ankit Relan, lawyer for T-Series, said, “The entire suit, which has been filed at the eleventh hour despite the trailer coming out more than six weeks ago, is based on conjectures. We can’t understand how a film of over two and a half hours in duration can reasonably be compared with a trailer of around two minutes to jump to a conclusion of copyright infringement. We even offered to show the entire film to the plaintiff as far ago as on May 17, to which the counsels for plaintiff responded only on the midnight of May 31, one night before the next hearing, stating that the reply was left lying with the watchman of their building all this while. They rejected the offer to see the film, of course.”

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