Lyca Productions, producers of the upcoming Tamil film Indian 2 starring actor Kamal Haasan, moved a court in Hyderabad seeking to restrain the director of the film, Shankar, from directing any other films before completing the sequel, the filmmaker’s counsel alleged when the case came up for hearing at the Madras High Court on Wednesday, as per a PTI report published on Outlook.
The case at the Madras HC was heard by a bench comprising of Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy.
Indian 2, the sequel to the 1996 action drama, has been embroiled in legal trouble ever since the production house moved the Madras HC earlier this year seeking an interim injunction on Shankar from directing any other film before completing Indian 2. This came after an announcement in February that Shankar was set to direct a Telugu film starring actor Ram Charan.
Refusing to grant the injunction, the court had said the issue should be resolved amicably with both the parties holding talks. However, the talks proved futile.
In May, Shankar blamed Lyca for the Indian 2 production delay while filing his counter-affidavit. 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.
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During the hearing on Monday, Shankar’s counsel alleged that Lyca Productions moved a Hyderabad court seeking an interim injunction on the filmmaker from directing any other films before the completion of Indian 2. However, the counsel representing Lyca Productions denied the allegation and stated that the issue with the Hyderabad court has “nothing to do” with the case pending at the Madras HC.
After hearing both parties, the bench adjourned the case by three weeks and posted the next hearing date as July 7. The bench also granted time for the pending application of Lyca Productions to prevent Shankar from director other films to be completed.