Saturday, January 2, 2010

All (AAL) is not Well

3 idiots movie stirred the controversy of not crediting Chetal Bhagat adequately.

Background: Vidhu Vinod Chopra bought the film making rights of the book five point someone and made 3 idiots. They had valid contract with Chetan Bhagat and made the movie. The movie became a bit hit. But they chose to credit Chetan Bhagat in the end credits. Chetan objected to it and demanded due credit !

What happened then:

Chopra, Raju Hirani claimed the film is hardly based on their novel and credited the scrip writer Hirani, Abhijat.  VVC shouted shut up to the media persons on 2nd Jan and apologies later on 3rd Jan. It turned out to be an shameful and embarrassing video. Even Aamir Khan blasted Chetan Bhagat...

My Opinion

Our movie industry is based on stars and considers everyone else as set property. But Chetan Bhagat is a brand in India and he has got millions of readers behind him. Its it not enough to put a contract and paying money to the author. But putting a title card "Based on the Novel By" does not harm anyone - after all it seldom happens in India when compared to Hollywood.

But discrediting the author and claiming % contribution of the story to the movie is baffling to me. True, scipt writes are imporatna and they work hard to adapt the story to the movie. But crediting the author is totally different and it ought to start happening in India.

I support Chetan Bhagat fully on this episode. I feel the movie makers were arrogant and thought they can fool millions of readers. Its Baffling folks to say the least.

Indian movie industry needs to grow up and adopt hollywood model of movie making based on novel. It cant be star based or production based to claim originality into everything !!!!

5 comments:

  1. True, I really appreciate it.. though its totally public that, this story is based on the book "FPS" giving due credit is not gonna bring the sun down to earth.. Since the director had come to media before the movie released saying, there are many things we have done which is not there in the book. So now, showing the line stating "story based on such and such book", would def put his image down. :P

    Evry thing happens in this media is for money money money, no more true movies, no more pure acting...

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  2. I feel its a publicity stunt by the makers of the film... Jus to garner more money by making the film name come in front pages so that more people get to c the movie and also buy the book to read.

    income for both parties right!!!!!!

    hollywood has to learn from these guys about promotion of movies... :) :) :)

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  3. Ajay: i dont think, this is the publicity stunt.

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  4. Sir. I have been reading ur blogs...
    Please add me in ur list so that i get a mail when u post a blog....

    Real nice to read your blogs....

    Thank You
    Daniel

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  5. Subramania Bharathi RJanuary 12, 2010 at 3:22 PM

    It is indeed publicity stunt!! Because if Chetan is sensible enough (which he is) he would have put in paper what he wanted in the contract itself. Another reason why it is pubilicity stunt is, if he is determined enough he would have initiated a case against the makers of the movie. But he didn't do that and instead he said he will close the issue and keep quiet. During this issue, I saw a report stating that the sales of the book and the movie which was a big hit went on to become a blockbuster!! This is the real story behind this controversy.

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