Akshay Kumar’s Hera Pheri 3 in legal battle, producer Firoz Nadiadwala sued over franchise rights

Hera Pheri 3 is one of the much-awaited comedy spectacles that the entire country is waiting to watch. However, seems like the return of Raju, Shyam and Baburao to theatres will have to go through a lot of roadblocks. The movie has found itself in legal trouble over the franchise rights.

A production house - Seven Arts International- has knocked on the doors of the Madras High Court, claiming that they own the copyright to the Hera Pheri franchise, not the Nadiadwala production house.

As reported by Bar and Bench, Seven Arts International Limited has filed a petition over the rights of Hera Pheri, which was the remake of the e Malayalam original Ramji Rao Speaking (1989).

In the plea, they have stated that Nadidwala was authorised to make only one Hindi remake of the 1989 Malayalam film, which was directed by Priyadarshan and was released in 2000 with the title Hera Pheri.

However, the production house went on to produce a sequel, Phir Hera Pheri (2006), and have now sold the rights of the movie to actor Akshay Kumar’s production house, Cape of Good Films.

Amid all this, GP Vijayakumar, MD of Seven Arts International, has said that Firoz Nadiadwala had been given the right to make one Hindi version of the film.

During a conversation with HTCity, he has said, “I bought the entire rights for the Hera Pheri franchise from the original producers of Ramji Rao Speaking, Adithya Films in 2022. They informed me that Firoz Nadiadwala had been given the right to make one Hindi version of the film. But he made a second version which released in 2006. He is not authorised to make a sequel or prequel, or use the characters.”

On Wednesday, the Madras High Court questioned producer Nadiadwala on whether Hera Pheri 3 is being made at all in a copyright case which accused him of violating copyright agreements.

When asked why they have not taken any legal action earlier. On this, Vijayakumar said that the original producers did not immediately realise what happened when the second film was made.

“While the first film was directed by Priyadarshan who we are close to, the second film was directed by Neeraj Vora, and the copyright holders at the time didn’t realise what happened. The original producers and I realised much later that Nadiadwala has done a violation and cheating. At the time we thought jo ho gaya, ho gaya (At that time we thought whatever happened, happened). We will produce the next version in Hindi.''

Revealed that when they approached Akshay for the same, then they got to know that Nadidwala had sold the rights. ‘’We approached actor Akshay Kumar for the same and that’s when we got to know that Nadiadwala has sold the rights to Akshay’s production house Cape of Good Films. We sent Nadiadwala a legal notice on how he could sell something he did not own. I had no option but to move the Court.”