Abhishek Kapoor to get story credit for ‘Rock On!! 2’

The producers of Rock On!! 2 have finally agreed on giving credit to Abhishek Kapoor as a co-writer of the film's story.

Abhishek had moved the Bombay High Court against film writer Pubali Chaudhuri and Farhan Akhtar claiming joint credit for the story of the sequel to 2008 film, Rock On!!, which he had written and directed himself. Akhtar's counsel, Virendra Tulzapurkar argued at length that Kapoor had no legal or contractual right to back his claim. But after Justice Gautam Patel, who heard the matter, suggested that Kapoor be given his due credit, the producer agreed to give him joint opening credit as the writer of the story of Rock On!! 2. The screenplay credit will only be that of Pubali Chaudhuri. The High Court then passed the order by consent of both the sides.

READ: ​Abhishek Kapoor: My relationship with Farhan Akhtar no longer the same

Kapoor's lawyers- Birendra Saraf and Hitesh Jain had argued thatRock On! was a "collaborative effort" by Kapoor and Chaudhary and pointed to multiple mail exchanges to demonstrate the collaboration and joint work on the story of the film. This is among the few cases where the author approached court well in advance before the film even hit the floor, unlike most cases when copyright claims get made usually just days before the scheduled release. The matter had, earlier in April, come up before Justice SC Gupte, where film producer Farhan Akhtar's counsel, Virendra Tulzapurkar had said that the sequel had "not even hit the floor yet." Saraf said that the issue was not of money claim, but an author's right for getting credit for his work.

Kapoor undertook unequivocally that he would not claim any royalty or monetary compensation whatsoever for the film story or any prequels, sequels and connected derivative work.