Earlier this month, the trailer of Shah Rukh Khan’s backed OTT show Betaal was dropped online. As the show continues to grab the eyeballs and some attention of the viewers, Netflix Original series Betaal has already landed in a legal soup, a day prior to its premiere. According to a report in Mid-day, Marathi screenwriters Sameer Wadekar and Mahesh Gosawi have accused Netflix and Shah Rukh Khan's Red Chillies Entertainment for lifting the plot of their Marathi zombie film, Vetaal. Following which they moved the Bombay High Court.
Marathi screenwriters Sameer Wadekar told Mid-day, “We had taken our script to several production houses. We hadn't pitched it to Red Chillies Entertainment, so the onus isn't on them, but on the platform that commissioned it. I haven't been able to figure out how [the idea] reached them. I am told the show went on floors in July 2019, a year after my script was registered with the Screen Writers' Association [SWA]. We've registered a complaint with the SWA too.”
He further added, “There are at least 10 plot points that are similar. We have depicted zombies as descendants of the Vetaal army from Shivaji's era while, in Betaal, they are shown as belonging to the British era. We had written a sequence where the army dances to folk music during a procession. A similar scene is included in their trailer.”
However, the high court dismissed their petition to put a stay on the show. He concluded, “The court has affirmed that we can seek damages if the plagiarism charges are proved." (ALSO READ: Betaal: Viineet Kumar On Shah Rukh Khan’s Horror Series: ‘People Have Had Bruises While Training For The Series’)
The series which has been produced under the banner of SRK’s Red Chillies Entertainment has a fabulous cast which includes names like Viineet Kumar, Aahana Kumra, Suchitra Pillai, Jitendra Joshi, Manjiri Pupala and Syna Anand.
Images Source: instagram.com/itsviineetkumar