Akshay Kumar's Hera Pheri 3 faces more legal trouble: Eros serves legal notice over film’s rights

Hera Pheri 3, the much-awaited comedy film has not even begun production yet but is already facing one hurdle after another. Now, a fresh salvo towards the film has been fired by Eros International, who has served Hera Pheri 3’s makers a legal notice claiming they are the sole owners of the intellectual property rights of the film.

Hera Pheri 3 was announced earlier this year with the original principal cast – Akshay Kumar, Suniel Shetty, and Paresh Rawal – returning to reprise their iconic roles. The first two Hera Pheri films (released in 2000 and 2000 respectively) were commercial successes and are considered cult classics. The film is being produced by Firoz Nadiadwala.

As per a notice published in Complete Cinema Magazine, Firoz Nadiadwala’s Base Industries Group has been sent a legal notice by Eros International over Hera Pheri 3, saying that Eros holds all the intellectual property rights of the film, as well as the rights to the title, digital rights and music rights on a ‘sole and exclusive basis’. The notice adds that Nadiadwala’s group owes Eros Rs 60 crore and had agreed that till this payment is made, all rights of Hera Pheri 3 are owned by Eros. The notice states that Nadiadwala had agreed to not sell the rights to a third party without Eros’ consent.

The notice also claims that Eros owns all the rights to subsequent films from Nadiadwala, including Awara Paagal Deewana 2, as well as the 2015 release Welcome Back. This is the second legal notice from a production house for the film. Earlier, T-Series had sent a notice to Base claiming that it is the “sole and exclusive right holder of all copyright of all music and audio visual song rights” of Hera Pheri 3.

Directed by Farhad Samji, Hera Pheri 3 is slated to go on floors later this year. Apart from Akshay, Paresh, and Suniel, the rest of the cast and the script is yet to be finalised.