Abhishek Kapoor moves to court against Excel Entertainment

18 Mar 2015

While Excel Entertainment's film Rock On went on to acquire a cult status, the sequel Rock On 2, has been facing issues, ever since the word go.

After the Luke Kenny issue over him being retained in the sequel (which is still unclear), the film made news for the search of the 'perfect heroine'. This time round, the film is yet again in news because Abhishek Kapoor (who wrote and directed the original film), has now moved to the Bombay High Court against the makers of Rock On 2, claiming that he hasn't been credited for the story.

The case which will come up for hearing today has Abhishek Kapoor seeking an injunction against Excel Entertainment to refrain from producing the movie, or even entering into any kind of third-party arrangements with the film. In addition to this, he has also sought that all the agreements signed till now for the film should be disclosed before the court.

Kapoor is an unhappy man today because, while he directed the original (that starred Farhan Akhtar and Arjun Rampal), he has been allegedly left in the lurch now because Excel has solely credited Pubali Chaudhuri for the script. Pubali Chaudhuri, for starters, is the lady with whom Abhishek was to collaborate with for the sequel's script. And when Abhishek took the matter to Excel and Pubali, he was reportedly not given any concrete answers. Meanwhile, Abhishek discovered that Pubali has gone ahead and got the script registered with the Film Writers' Association (FWA), which made him feel furthermore cheated.

That's why, on February 11, 2014, he applied to the FWA to register the title of Rock On 2 under his name, which later was ruled in his favour. And later, on October 30, when he read a press release announcing Rock On 's sequel, he wrote a letter to Excel Entertainment asking them about the credit and also the remuneration for the script (which was as per the agreement signed between them). Apparently, Abhishek's' lawsuit also claimed that Excel allegedly got Pubali to write Rock On 2's story and screenplay and credited her solely.

The lawsuit also claimed that, because of the friendly atmosphere created by the company's (Excel Entertainment) directors, he (Abhishek ) started trusting them and that handful of the said clauses were in total contrast with the Copyright Act.