Director Shankar has been accused of plagiarising the story of his upcoming film with Ram Charan, tentatively called RC15, by a production executive named Chinnasamy. The latter has lodged a complaint with the South Indian Film Writers Association (SIFWA).
Speaking to Silverscreen India, SIFWA president and filmmaker K Bhagyaraj confirmed that a complaint has been registered. “There is a dispute and talks will be held to resolve it. Both parties have claimed that the story is theirs and we are scrutinising it. We cannot comment or give further details as of now. However, once the dispute is settled, we will inform the press about the matter,” he added.
RC15 is set to be produced by Dil Raju and Shirish under Sri Venkateswara Creations banner. It will mark the 50th production venture of Dil Raju and will be Shankar’s maiden directorial in Telugu. It was announced on July 31 that Kiara Advani will star opposite Ram Charan in the film. RC15 is set to be a trilingual film that will be released in Telugu, Tamil, and Hindi.
While there has been no official announcement on who is penning the story for RC15, it has been reported that filmmaker Karthik Subbaraj would be writing it. Earlier, there were also reports stating that Subbaraj’s former associate Sellamuthu had complained to SIFWA that the story of RC15 was his.
However, Bhagyaraj told Silverscreen India that only one complaint has been filed regarding the matter, by Chinnasamy. It is unclear whether the allegations of plagiarism have been levelled against Subbaraj also or only Shankar.
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This is not the first time Shankar and his projects have been mired in controversy in recent times. Soon after RC15 was first announced in February, the filmmaker became embroiled in legal trouble over the sequel to Indian, his 1996 blockbuster. Indian 2’s makers Lyca Productions sought an interim injunction to keep the director from working on any other films before completing the sequel. However, the court dismissed the plea on July 2.
Shankar has also run into trouble with the proposed Hindi remake of his Tamil film Anniyan with Ranveer Singh. A day after the remake was announced, Anniyan’s producer Aascar Ravichandran issued a statement claiming that the remake was “totally illegal” as he had bought the full rights of the story and had not yet sold it to anyone. Ravichandran recently said that he will be moving the Madras High Court on the matter.