Chennai: Staar Movies, owned by actor Prashanth’s mother Shanthi Thiagarajan has approached the Madras High Court to restrain the makers of the Tamil film Thaanaa Serndha Kootam, starring popular film star Suriya, from releasing the movie.
In its appeal, Staar Movies sought to restrain the makers of the film from releasing the film scheduled to hit the screens on January 12, before settling the dispute over the remake rights of the film.
According to Staar Movies, Hindi film “Special 26”, starring Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar, was released in 2013. In August 2014, Staar Movies signed an agreement, which was valid for three years with the makers of the film Viacom 18, who also owned the copyright of the film, and obtained the rights to remake the film in Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada.
In September 2016, Staar Movies assigned the right to remake the film in Tamil to RPP Film factory for a consideration of Rs 1.5 crore. However, RPP Film factory failed to produce the remake within the stipulated period of one year, the appellant added.
The appellant said subsequently, Staar Movies came to know that Studio Green was making the Tamil version of the movie with Suriya in the lead role.
Therefore, it approached the Madras High Court alleging that the remake was being made without their consent. However, a single judge, pointing out that the petitioner has approached the court in the eleventh hour seeking an injunction against the release, dismissed the petition. Aggrieved, it filed the present appeal.
Recording the contentions of both parties, the First Bench comprising Chief Justice Indira Banerjee and Justice Abdul Quddhose posted the appeal to January 10 for passing orders.
