With less than a week left to its release, the excitement for Prabhas, Deepika Padukone, Amitabh Bachchan and Kamal Haasan starrer is only increasing. While the makers unveiled a new trailer on Friday, June 21, it seems like the film may land in legal trouble. Why? Hollywood concept artists Oliver Beck and Sung Choi have accused the makers of the futuristic film of plagiarism. Recently, the artists took to their respective social media handles and levelled serious allegations against the makers of Kalki 2898 AD. Read on to know more.
Kalki 2898 AD plagiarism claims
Levelling plagiarism allegations against the makers of Kalki 2898 AD, Hollywood concept artist Oliver Beck told Indian Express that the makers had initially approached him to collaborate on the film. However, things didn’t fall into place and they couldn’t work together. He then revealed he was shocked when the trailer of the Prabahs, Deepika Padukone and Amitabh Bachchan starrer released as it has several resemblances to his previous works.
He told the publication, “It might be difficult to see the plagiarism when you are not an artist. You might not see it immediately but all my artist friends that I have talked to and the artist community are very clear that this was referenced from my work and you can see clearly that the main takeaways are the colour palettes, it is the same, and also the shapes.” He added, “It is not an exact copy but the shapes are similar. It is too much of a coincidence because they also contacted me to work on this film. So, they know my portfolio and they have seen my work so it is too much of a coincidence.”
Beck to take legal action?
Talking about fighting a legal battle with the makers of Kalki 2898 AD further, Beck said, “Legal recourse is challenging for me because there isn’t direct copying of my artwork. Legal action typically requires very evident plagiarism, such as in Sung Choi’s case where the work was practically copy-pasted.”
On June 13, Oliver Beck took to social media and called out the makers of Kalki for sampling his work for the movie. He wrote on X (formerly Twitter, “Sad to see that some of the work I did for Star Trek: Prodigy got stolen by Vyjayanthi movies in their trailer: https://youtube.com/watch?v=y1-w1kUGuz8&t=7s This is the matte painting I did for Star Trek under direction of Ben Hibon and Alessandro Taini and then as it appears in the trailer.”
About Kalki 2898 AD
The Nag Ashwin-directed dystopian action flick stars Prabhas, Amitabh Bachchan, Kamal Haasan, Deepika Padukone, Disha Patani, and Brahmanandam. The film – produced by C. Aswani Dutt under Vyjayanthi Movies, is scheduled to release in theatres on June 27, 2024. The film will be screened in Telugu and Hindi, as well as in dubbed versions in Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada, and English.
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