Hera Pheri 3 lands in legal trouble: Here's why south producer GP Vijayakumar moved to court

A recent sequel added to the highly successful Hera Pheri franchise is scheduled for release this year. Akshay Kumar, Suniel Shetty and Paresh Rawal will be reprising their roles from the first 2 films as Raju, Shyam and Baburao. Just as anticipation began for the project, Hera Pheri 3 has now been brought under another round of lawsuits. This time it involves production rights to the franchise. A producer from the south has claimed that he owns production rights to the franchise, and is suing the current producers for using his franchise rights without permission.

South producer challenges franchise rights

The GP Vijayakumar, the producer and MD of Seven Arts International, filed the lawsuit against pending production. He contends that he acquired a full set of rights to the Hera Pheri series prior to the Hindi sequel being produced. According to Vijayakumar, he was legally transferred all rights to the original producers for the Malayalam film Ramji Rao Speaking, from which the Hera Pheri franchise originates.

Vijayakumar claims that Firoz Nadiadwala had obtained permission from the original producers to create one Hindi version of the original property. Hera Pheri was the movie that was made first (by director Priyadarshan) with permission. However, according to Vijayakumar, Firoz Nadiadwala produced Phir Hera Pheri (2006) without permission from the previous author(s) of the first movie. The sequel to Hera Pheri was directed by the late Neeraj Vora.

Vijayakumar explained why no action had previously been taken legally. The first film was created at the time of their close relationship with director Priyadarshan. He said that the copyright holders had also not caught the issue until after the sequel's launch. Although they eventually recognized that their rights had been violated and something had been wrong, they chose not to address it at the time. However, before the Hera Pheri 3 release, he decided to move to the court.

Seven Arts International's attempt to create another Hindi-language version brought the issue back to the forefront after approaching Akshay Kumar about producing the film. They discovered that the Nadiadwala & Grandsons production had previously sold the rights to Akshay's production entity, Cape Of Good Films. This prompted them file a legal notice and subsequently move the courts in support of their position. The petition indicated that Nadiadwalas had no authority to make any sequels, prequels, or use any of the characters.

Director Priyadarshan has stated that he was not familiar with the legal suit. Hera Pheri 3  has also been under spotlight when Paresh Rawal reportedly exited the movie due to the feud with Akshay Kumar.

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