Malayalam film 'Kappela' to be remade in other languages; HC lifts ban
Kochi: The Kerala High Court has lifted the ban on the remake of Malayalam movie 'Kappela' directed by Muhammed Musthafa and produced by Vishnu Venu under the banner of Kadhas Untold in other languages including Telugu. The court had earlier imposed a ban on Kappela’s remake in other languages after a man named Sudhas, who claimed to be the co-writer of the movie filed a petition in the Ernakulam district court.
The makers had sold the rights of the movie for Telugu remake following the movie's release on Netflix in 2020. The movie won several awards since then and the discussions to remake the movie in other languages had also started. Sudhas came into the scene almost a year after all this, claiming that he was a part of the movie’s script.
Sudhas entered into the sets of the movie 'Kappela' as an assistant director and stood as a member of the direction team during the pre-production. He had left the sets of 'Kappela' after receiving the offer of assistant in Rajinikanth’s movie 'Darbar'. The director and the producer added his name in the title as a co-writer as he took part in the script discussion and also associated the direction of the movie for almost a month. As Sudhas was in the movie’s team during the time of pre-production, he took the remuneration for a month. Sudhas exploited the situation because of the reason that his name was on the title. The district court temporarily banned the movie’s remake into other languages after considering his plea. As part of the case, Wahid who gave the story idea, scriptwriter and director Muhammed Mustafa and producer Vishnu Venu produced the necessary documents before the court.
The much-acclaimed movie has Anna Ben, Roshan Mathews and Sreenath Bhasi in the lead roles. The movie that had a theatrical release was later pulled off from theatres and then released on Netflix.
'Kappela' was screened at various film festivals and also won many awards. Anna Ben won the Best Actress Award and Muhammed Mustafa won the Best Debutant Director Award for this year.