It was recently announced that the critically acclaimed Tamil film Soorarai Pottru, which featured South star Suriya, will be remade in Hindi. The Tamil movie, which was released in November 2020 on a digital platform, was inspired by the life of Captain G R Gopinath, founder of Air Deccan and pioneer of low-cost aviation in India. Now, BT has learnt that the Madras High Court has directed a stay on the recently announced Hindi remake. An injunction restraining Suriya’s 2D Entertainment from exploiting the Hindi rights of the film based on the book Simply Fly — A Deccan Odyssey authored by Captain G R Gopinath has been issued.

The original film in Tamil was made by Guneet Monga’s Sikhya Entertainment and Suriya’s 2D Entertainment. Sikhya Entertainment had approached the Madras High Court against the latter over the rights of the film, including the remake in Hindi. Earlier this month, Abundantia Entertainment, known for backing prominent films like Sherni, Shakuntala Devi, Airlift and Toilet - Ek Prem Katha, had announced that they would be collaborating with 2D Entertainment for the Hindi remake of Soorarai Pottru.

On probing why Sikhya Entertainment approached the Madras High Court, a source informed us, “Sikhya Entertainment and 2D Entertainment had made Soorarai Pottru together, and they were supposed to make the Hindi film together, too. However, apparently, 2D Entertainment selling the rights to Abundantia Entertainment without Sikhya’s consent and not fulfiling obligations under the original agreement between them led to Sikhya making the move.”