Javed Akhtar slams Shekhar Kapur disregarding bound script of Mr India: ‘Where was his sense of creative outrage?’ | Bollywood - Hindustan Times
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Javed Akhtar slams Shekhar Kapur disregarding bound script of Mr India: ‘Where was his sense of creative outrage?’

Hindustan Times, New Delhi | By
Feb 20, 2020 10:46 AM IST

Javed Akhtar is angry that Shekhar Kapur is objecting to filmmakers announcing a Mr India trilogy without consulting him, alleging the filmmaker ‘did his own thing’ while making the original classic.

Lyricist-writer Javed Akhtar has said Shekhar Kapur should not be offended for not being consulted about the new version of Mr India as he, too, had disregarded the original script for the iconic film. Salim-Javed originally wrote the film that finally featured Anil Kapoor, Sridevi and Amrish Puri in lead roles.

Anil Kapoor and Sridevi played lead roles in Mr India.
Anil Kapoor and Sridevi played lead roles in Mr India.

Javed told Asian Age, “Today Shekhar Kapur is offended because no one has consulted him about this new project. Why should they? They may or may not be morally bound to inform the people involved with the original film, but they are not legally bound to do so. And where was his sense of creative outrage when he had disregarded the bound script of Mr India that we had given to producer Boney Kapoor and Shekhar?”

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“Shekhar chose to do his own thing back then. Today, when other people are doing the same, he is upset?” he added. Filmmaker Ali Abbas Zafar recently announced that he is set to make a trilogy based on the classic film, Mr India, in collaboration with the production company Zee Studios.

Asked if the makers should have sought his permission, Shekhar told Hindustan Times in an interview, “Not if it’s a different film or a remake. But if they are picking the same/similar characters, then they definitely should have. A director has moral rights over his/her creation, especially in a film like Mr India.”

According to the Asian Age report, Shekhar had earlier said about not sticking to the script by Salim-Javed, “I never read that script. I am a hundred percent sure that what we made finally was very different from what Salim-Javed had written originally. I never saw that original Salim-Javed script, which I believe had been conceived for Mr Amitabh Bachchan. As for what you saw on screen in Mr India, the scenes were written as we were filming. There was a constant improvisation on the sets. Do you know, Mogambo was written after we started shooting? We knew there was going to be a goofy villain who’d have to go beyond Daga and Teja, but we didn’t know who or what it would be. Javed Akhtar was struggling to create a new kind of villain. Mogambo was born as we were filming, just like idea of Sridevi going into the villain’s den dressed as Charlie Chaplin.”

Javed also insisted the idea of recreating Mr India characters is not “so impossible”. He told the daily, “That’s not so impossible. Every James Bond film has its own heroine and villain. As I said, it all depends on what they do with the character.”

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