More on the 3 Idiots controversy:
Author Chetan Bhagat is pissed at the makers of the film 3 Idiots for not crediting him enough for the story based on his book Five Point Someone. Bhagat sold the rights of his book, a national bestseller, to producer/film-maker Vidhu Vinod Chopra (VVC) but then sparked off a controversy after he posted a blog claiming that the makers of the film had been ‘unfair’ to him. He said that the pre-release claims by the film’s makers that 3 Idiots was only ‘loosely’ based on his novel was a lie. Yes, he said there were changes and deviations, but ‘it is no way an original story’.
Meanwhile, the 3 Idiots gang led by VVC and followed closely by actor Aamir Khan accused Bhagat of being ‘publicity hungry’ now that the film has become a blockbuster hit. At a televised press conference in Delhi’s satellite city of Noida, Chopra lost his cool, telling a journalist to ’shut up’ after he was asked about the controversy. Chopra apologised a few hours later but the damage was already done.
It was left to director Raj Kumar Hirani to clarify that:
1. “We legally purchased the rights to the novel” with complete authority to alter the text. “We have always said that if we had not read the book we wouldn’t have made the film. But it must be remembered that the screenplay that has evolved from the book is very different from the book and has a life of its own,” he said at the same ’shut up’ press conference.
2. Hirani denies Bhagat’s claim that he was not shown the final script, saying there was a four-hour narration at the end of which Bhagat was made to sign a non-disclosure agreement.
3. Hirani says Bhagat was never told that he would get more than credit in the rolling credits. So why crib now one week post-release.
At the heart of the war, writes Vir Sanghvi in the Hindustan Times is the question of ‘grace’.
Here are two images you may remember from television. The first was the Oscar ceremony. Simon Beaufoy won the Oscar for best adapted screenplay for Slumdog Millionaire. It is no secret that Beaufoy’s script differed significantly from the book by Vikas Swarup on which Slumdog was based. But Beaufoy made it a point to thank Swarup on stage and to say that without his book there would be no screenplay, no movie, and no Oscars.
Later that same night Slumdog director Danny Boyle, while accepting his own Oscar, apologised to the choreographer Longinus, whose name had been left out of the end credits of Slumdog. When the film won the Best Picture Oscar, the entire unit went on stage including Vikas Swarup who had been flown in to Los Angeles by the makers of the film at their expense. more
Previously on AW:
