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the movie has been adapted, and its hero Aamir Khan, producer Vidhu Vinod Chopra and director Rajkumar Hirani.
An `idiotic' controversy has broken out over accusations of credit poaching. The film credits the story to Abhijat Joshi and Hirani. Bhagat's name appears at the film's end.
Bhagat is miffed that the film does not give him due credit. Khan claims that Bhagat is trying to take away the credit from the film's scriptwriter, Joshi. Agencies have quoted the actor as saying that he has advised Chopra and Hirani to file a case against Bhagat as he has defamed them with "false" allegations.
Reacting to this, Bhagat told a news agency, "For the past two years I have trusted Hirani, Vidhu Vinod Chopra and Aamir blindly and this is what I get in return. Now I am being threatened with legal action but I am ready for it."
Chopra too jumped into the fray on Friday. When the controversy was brought up by journalists at a press meet in Noida, he thundered, ``Have you read the book? I have read the book, so shut up!'' He also charged that Bhagat was trying to gain publicity for his book. Bhagat retorted that he doesn't need this kind of fame and he can't help it if millions of people who have read the book have spotted the issue.
The row first erupted on Thursday, when Bhagat blogged, "Pre-release, the makers made press statements like the movie is only `very loosely', `2%-5% inspired by the book'. After release, those who have read the book and seen the movie (and frankly, I think those are the only people who have the right to comment) find the film to be an adaptation of Five Point Someone.''
"The setting, characters, plotline, dramatic twists and turns, one-liners, theme, message - almost all aspects that make up the story are from FPS. Yes, there are some changes, any adaptation requires that - but it is no way an original story. Leading movie critics have privately admitted to me that the film is 70% the book. Still, don't take my word for it - go read the book, watch the film."
Aamir's view is totally different. At a press conference on Thursday, he said "it is unfortunate that Chetan is behaving in this manner". Aamir said Joshi and Hirani have "abided by the contract" entered into with Bhagat and the author has been given due credit as per the contract.
"For nearly three years, Joshi has been working on the script. It is unfortunate that Chetan is trying to take away the credit from someone not as famous as he is," Aamir said.
He also mentioned how Chetan had dropped in on the sets of `3 Idiots' one day, when Aamir had the chance to interact with him. "During the course of the conversation I told him that I was yet to read `Five Point Someone', which I intended doing sometime soon. Chetan then told me that Abhijat's script is different and that I might not necessarily read the book. Let's not talk about this topic anymore and move on to other interesting things," he said.
However, in his blog, Chetan also says that "crores was poured into publicity on shutting me out and cementing the fact that `3 Idiots' is not based on `Five Point Someone'. However, the book had been read by millions of people and the FPS buzz just did not die down."
He adds, "My family sat in the theatre shocked, as sequence after sequence came from the book. 2%-5% means 3-6 minutes, and I had told my family to look for the few FPS moments and note them. However, there were so many that it became impossible to keep track. The plot line was the same - people meet at ragging, the first class with definition of machine, the friends separate, Alok (Raju) moves with Venkat (Chatur), Ryan (Rancho) helps Alok's father, Alok rejoins group etc etc. From Alok (Raju) jumping to stealing the papers and calling out from Cherian (Virus's) office - the book came alive on screen. I was surprised and happy that FPS has made it in such a grand way.
However, my family had not spotted my credit in the beginning (there was none) and they were feeling let down....The story credit was not shared with me."
Bhagat adds in his blog, "I wanted to see the final script - it was never shown to me. I wanted to see the film before release - it was not shown to me (even though trials had been done for people). What's more, the makers had called me to their office and pressured me several times to withdraw my `Based on a novel by' credit, which was by contract. They told me they'd replace it with something like `initiated by' - a credit that doesn't exist anywhere in the world. I still told them that if the film is indeed original, I'll happily withdraw the credit, but somehow the promos don't tell me so. I asked them to show me the film and they fell silent."
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