Mithran lashes out at Writers’ Union over plagiarism charges

Director PS Mithran’s latest flick Hero opened to mixed reviews from the audience and critics last Friday. The latest is that veteran filmmaker and the head of Writers’ Union Bhagyaraj has said that Hero’s script, that takes a dig at the education system, doesn’t belong to Mithran. An aspiring writer named Bosco Prabhu had approached the union and accused Mithran of plagiarising the story. He filed a complaint and submitted his story to K Bhagyaraj, who agreed that there were a few resemblances to the storyline. The veteran filmmaker also said that the producer of Hero Rajesh owed Bosco a compensation of Rs 10 lakh. Reacting to these charges, Mithran said, “The union should compare the screenplays and not the synopsis. Hero was inspired by stories from newspaper articles and real-life incidents. They (Union) are speaking only on the basis of the synopsis. We worked for 446 days on the film, and I have an entire audio recording of the process.”

Mithran also lashed out at the union’s baseless charges of him not responding to the allegations. “I have sent the synopsis, two letters and attended two meetings as well,” he added. When asked if Bosco would be compensated as per the union’s demand, he replied, “Rajesh has already deposited Rs 10 lakh in FEFSI’s account and agreed to pay Prabhu if there was a resemblance in stories but the union hasn’t compared the screenplay of both the scripts.”