Drishyam 2 Hindi remake shooting halted due to copyright case pending in Bombay HC

Production house Panorama Studios International, which has acquired the Hindi remake rights of the popular Malayalam movie Drishyam 2, gave an assurance to the Bombay High Court recently that they will not commence shooting for the movie till the copyright suit filed against them is still pending in court.

Last week, Viacom 18 Media Pvt Ltd, which had produced the 2015 Hindi movie Drishyam, approached the HC seeking a restraining order against Panorama Studios in an attempt to stop them from producing the sequel to the movie in Hindi.

According to Bar and Bench’s report, the case was filed by Viacom citing that Panorama Studios was infringing on their copyright and seeking recognition and adjudication of copyright and other rights in the production of the sequel to the film in the Drishyam franchise.

The suit filed by Viacom stated that Wide Angle Creations and Raj Kumar Theatres Pvt Ltd. had allegedly executed a Remakes Rights Agreement with Viacom assigning exclusive, absolute, irrevocable and perpetual copyright to them to produce new films by adapting the Malayalam film Drishyam to Viacom.

Viacom had also filed an application seeking interim reliefs on Wednesday. The case was heard by Justice GS Patel.

In the latest hearing, Panorama Studios assured the court that the shooting for the film will not begin till the next date of hearing of Viacom’s application. The court also noted that any preparatory work done as a part of the film’s pre-production work, including the development of script, screenplay or dialogue by Panorama Studios will be at their own risk. The court has posted the suit for further hearing on June 18.

Panorama Studios took to Twitter on May 4 to announce that they have acquired the Hindi remake rights of the recently released Malayalam film Drishyam 2 – The Resumption. The Malayalam film, which released on Amazon Prime Video this year, is the sequel to the 2013 hit crime drama Drishyam, which was directed by filmmaker Jeethu Joseph.