Mumbai, July 05: Bollywood films have come under the scanner for ripping off story ideas from Hollywood films, other foreign films and even regional movies.
So, it was surprising that there were no reports of the plot of Sabbir Khan’s Kambakkht Ishq being similar to that of Pammal K Sambandham.
When BT contacted Sabbir, who is also one of the film’s writers, he said, “Yes, we are aware that there are influences from Pammal…. KI was scripted after a lot of trial and error. But when the idea of Akshay Kumar playing a stuntman came up, someone told us about the Kamal Haasan film. That’s when we approached the producers of Pammal… and acquired the rights.”
The director did not want to be accused of plagiarism. “Nowadays, once you’re aware of your film bearing similarities to an earlier work, it’s better to honour someone’s intellectual property rather than be accused of copying it,” said Sabbir. “I still maintain that KI was an original idea. But when we got to know about Pammal…, we thought it would be better to acquire its rights,” he added.
What does Sabbir think about the oft-used Bollywood trick of borrowing ideas from other films? “There’s nothing wrong in it. For instance, if I like an Italian film, I would definitely want to adapt it to make a film for Indian audiences. In fact, an international production house has even approached us to acquire the rights of KI,” he revealed.
—Agencies