Mr. India remake row: Director Shekhar Kapur poses an important question, triggers debate

Oscar-nominated director Shekhar Kapu's Mr. India, a Bollywood cult classic, has been in the news after director Ali Abbas Zafar announced that he is slated to helm a trilogy based on the iconic character of Mr.India immortalized by veteran actor Anil Kapoor.

The controversy has been going on for a while now and in the latest development, Shekhar Kapur posed an important question on his Twitter handle that triggered a heated debate with both agreements and disagreements.

"The argument on a remake of #MrIndia is not that no one took permission from me or even bothered to tell me. The question is. If you are remaking a feature film, based on a director’s very successful work, does the Director have no creative rights over what he/she created?," Kapur wrote. This attracted a lot of reactions from Kapur's followers.

One user wrote, "Sir, with all due respect when you sold the rights of the film then in legal terms you have no rights left. I think, in professional world - we all learn to move on. Thank you." Another user said, "It all depends on what agreement you signed with producer. If you don't have such agreement, I don't think director can claim anything if producer wish to remake or reuse the story/characters. Also I guess original story/screenplay not written by you, so you can't claim copyright."

Mr. India, which released in 1987, also featured Amrish Puri, Sridevi and Satish Kaushik.

'Mr. India' row: Shekhar Kapur nips film remake argument, says 'Sridevi was against it'

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