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3 min readChennaiFeb 7, 2026 05:57 PM IST
Paresh Rawal returns to Hera Pheri 3.
The legal troubles around Hera Pheri 3 refuse to end. After the face-off between the film’s lead actors Akshay Kumar and Paresh Rawal, the film has now landed in a fresh copyright controversy. A South Indian producer has approached the Madras High Court, claiming that producer Firoz Nadiadwala does not own the rights to the franchise. Now, the future of the sequel remains uncertain.
As per Bar and Bench, production house Seven Arts International has claimed that Nadiadwala only had the rights to remake one film — the Hindi adaptation of the Malayalam original Ramji Rao Speaking (1989). This adaptation was the first Hera Pheri film, released in 2000 and directed by Priyadarshan. However, the South Indian producer alleged that Nadiadwala flouted the contract and went on to make the sequel Phir Hera Pheri in 2006, and later transferred the rights of the franchise to a third party. In this case, the third party is Akshay Kumar’s production house, Cape of Good Films.
Following these allegations, the Madras High Court has questioned producer Firoz Nadiadwala on whether it is legally permissible to make the film while the matter remains under dispute.
Speaking to Hindustan Times, GP Vijayakumar, MD of Seven Arts International, claimed that he bought the rights of the film from the original producers. “I bought the entire rights for the Hera Pheri franchise from the original producers of Ramji Rao Speaking, Adithya Films in 2022. They informed me that Firoz Nadiadwala had been given the right to make one Hindi version of the film. But he made a second version which released in 2006. He is not authorised to make a sequel or prequel, or use the characters,” he said.
He further claimed that he did not approach the court when the second sequel was made, choosing to let bygones be bygones, and wanted to produce the third instalment of the Hindi film. However, he later discovered that Nadiadwala had sold the rights to Akshay Kumar. “While the first film was directed by Priyadarshan who we are close to, the second film was directed by Neeraj Vora, and the copyright holders at the time didn’t realise what happened. The original producers and I realised much later that Nadiadwala has done a violation and cheating. At the time we thought jo ho gaya, ho gaya. We will produce the next version in Hindi. We approached actor Akshay Kumar for the same and that’s when we got to know that Nadiadwala has sold the rights to Akshay’s production house Cape of Good Films. We sent Nadiadwala a legal notice on how he could sell something he did not own. I had no option but to move the Court,” he said.
Meanwhile, a spokesperson from Akshay Kumar’s production house told the publication that they had purchased the film’s rights under the assumption that Firoz Nadiadwala held complete ownership of the Hera Pheri franchise.
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