The Madras High Court has passed an order restraining the Mumbai-based Pranita Pawar Productions from releasing the Marathi movie Majha Naav Shivaji.
The order was passed by the court after hearing a petition filed by Wunderbar Productions, owned by actor-filmmaker Dhanush. In the petition, Wunderbar Productions alleged that the Marathi film Majha Naav Shivaji is an infringement of their copyrights as it is based on their hit film Velai Illa Pattadhari. The petition alleged that the Marathi film not only had several scenes that were similar to the ones in Dhanush’s Velai Illa Pattadhari but also that the tunes of two songs, Udhungada Sangu and What a Karuvad, have been copied, thereby clearly infringing the copyrights. They also alleged that when legal notice was sent to the production house, it was returned undelivered forcing them to give out a public notice.
Apart from restraining the production house, the judges also ordered it to hand over all the materials pertaining to the Marathi film including digitised master copies, software, master cassettes, master HD/DVD/CDs, literature, pamphlets, sound recordings, etc, to Wunderbar Films.
The court also ordered the producers to hand over the accounts of profits made by the production to the petitioner and the costs for the suit as well.
Velai Illa Pattadhari, directed by Velraj and produced by Dhanush, was released in the year 2014. The film had Dhanush playing the lead role with Amala Paul playing his heroine. The others in the star cast playing pivotal roles were Saranya Ponvannan and Samuthirakani. Anirudh Ravichander had composed music for this venture with Velraj cranking the camera and M. V. Rajesh Kumar editing it. Made on a budget of Rs. 8 crores, the film went on to collect Rs. 53 crores at the box office. Following the massive success of Velai Illa Pattadhari, the filmmakers went on to make a sequel to it with the same lead star but it was directed by Soundarya Rajinikanth.
(Content provided by Digital Native)