The Madras High Court on Friday dismissed an application filed by Lyca Productions, the producers of the upcoming Tamil film Indian 2 starring Kamal Haasan, which sought to restrain the director of the film, Shankar from working on any other films, including his Telugu project with actor Ram Charan, until the sequel was completed.
The case was heard by Justice N Sathish Kumar.
Indian 2, the sequel to Shankar’s 1996 action drama, has been embroiled in legal trouble for some time now. Earlier this year, Lyca Productions moved the Madras HC seeking an interim injunction to prevent Shankar from directing any other film before completing the sequel. This came after an announcement in February that Shankar was set to direct a Telugu film starring actor Ram Charan. Apart from this film, Shankar also announced the Hindi remake of his 2005 Tamil film Anniyan, starring Ranveer Singh.
Refusing to grant the injunction, in April, the court had directed the filmmaker and the production house to resolve the issue amicably. However, talks between the two parties proved futile.
In May, Shankar filed a counter-affidavit blaming Lyca for the Indian 2 production delay. He said that the film’s shooting was supposed to start in 2017 and Haasan had requested that the film be released before the 2019 General Assembly elections. Shankar claimed that the film was delayed since Lyca wanted to produce the project instead of producer Dil Raju. The filmmaker alleged that Lyca did not show interest in his pitch for Indian 2 initially, but later expressed interest after which he [Shankar] had to convince Raju to exit the project.
When the case came up for hearing in June, Shankar’s counsel alleged that Lyca had also moved a Hyderabad court seeking an interim injunction to prevent the filmmaker from directing any other films before completing Indian 2. However, Lyca Productions denied the allegation and stated that the issue with the Hyderabad court had “nothing to do” with the case pending at the Madras HC.
Now, at Friday’s hearing, the Madras High Court dismissed Lyca’s application seeking an interim injunction on Shankar working on other projects.
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Indian 2 will have Kamal Haasan reprising his role as Senapathy from the original film. The sequel is also slated to feature Nedumudi Venu, Kajal Aggarwal, Siddharth, Rakul Preet Singh, Bobby Simha, Priya Bhavani Shankar, and Samuthirakani. The film was officially announced in September 2017 during the final episode of the first season of the reality television show Bigg Boss Tamil, which was hosted by Haasan.
The film went on floors in February 2020, but production was stalled when three persons were killed and nine injured in a freak crane accident at the film’s sets in EVP Film City in Chennai.