Bollywood tries to 'Knock Out' 20th Century Fox in court

Alleging a copyright infringement, 20th Century Fox has moved the Bombay high court seeking an injunction on the release of Sohail Maklai’s Knock Out.

The film is scheduled for release on October 15.

The Hollywood studio had alleged that the movie is a complete rip-off of their 2003 Colin Farrell starrer Phone Booth.

In the high court on Monday, Sohail Maklai Entertainment Private Limited (SMEPL), the defendants, played nothing close to being timid. Countering allegations of copyright infringement, its counsels said Knock Out was its original literary work and only one situation in the movie is common between the two films.

Counsels for SMEPL Iqbal Chagla and Venkatesh Dhond argued that the copyright holder did not have a monopoly over an idea. “Or else all Bollywood films will have some resemblance with Hollywood films and the court will have to issue injunctions on all,” Chagla said. Dhond told the court that it was like the common Indian theme: two brothers getting separated in a mela.

“Their film is about a man who is made to confess about his extra-marital affair; our film is about corrupt Indian politicians routing their money to Swiss banks,” Chagla said.

Arguing for Fox, counsel Virendra Tulzapurkar said, “The test is that after seeing their film, the viewer is reminded of mine.” He said Fox, the plaintiff, learnt in August that SMEPL was making Knock Out in Hindi. They wrote to SMEPL saying they had the film’s copyright and sought a copy of the screenplay to evaluate possible infringement. The copyright was vested with the studio after the screenplay writer Larry Cohen entered into an agreement with them in 1998.

Chagla, however, said the film was unveiled at the IIFA awards in June. The copyright infringement suit before the film’s release is nothing but “blackmail”, he said.

Justice Roshan Dalvi directed SMEPL to give Fox a copy of their screenplay and adjourned the case till Oct 13.