After the trailer of Emraan Hashmi's latest supernatural thriller, Mr. X, premiered online, social media has been buzzing over the similarities between the Vikram Bhatt directorial and the 2000 Hollywood thriller, Hollow Man. There's a sequence in which Emraan's Mr. X becomes visible when orange paint is thrown on him which seems 'inspired' by the Kevin Bacon-starrer. However, Vikram insists that his film is “not a copy of Hollow Man“.

“Indian filmmakers are trying to create original, quality stuff so it's sad when someone tries to bring down your film based on a two-minute teaser. Just because Krissh flies, does it make him Spiderman?“ Vikram Bhatt argues. When the specific scene was underlined to him as a reference point, he insisted that it wasn't just paint that showed up his Mr X. “He's visible through a lot of other mediums, underwater for instance,“ he said. “I don't even remember what Hollow Man is about.“

The film's producer, Mahesh Bhatt, added, “Mr X is not Hollow Man or Mr India reinvented but grew from a nostalgic yearning to revisit the Mr. X franchisee. It had Ashok Kumar playing an invisible man, was produced by GP Sippy and directed by my father Nanabhai Bhatt in 1957.“

He reasoned that just because their hero turns invisible, doesn't mean it's a rip-off. “The invisible man is not a new phenomenon,“ Bhatt said, adding that their vigilante narrative has a love story at the core and two different world views. “While his beloved believes that social and legal codes cannot be violated, he who once walked on the right side of the law, believes extraordinary situations calls for extraordinary measures.“