Since past few days, blame game has gone to another level in Hindi film industry. Every other person from the industry is raking up their old wounds after sudden death of actor Sushant Singh Rajput. And the latest entrant in that club is writer Chetan Bhagat who has accused filmmaker-producer Vidhu Vinod Chopra for harassing him during the release of ‘3 Idiots’. Replying to Chopra’s wife film critic Anupama Chopra’s tweet, Bhagat claimed that Vidhu Vinod Chopra “bullied” him and “drove him close to suicide”.
Sushant Singh Rajput died by suicide at his home in Bandra, Mumbai in June 2020, at age 34. His last film ‘Dil Bechara’ co-starring Sanjana Sanghi is going to release on 24th July on an online streaming platform. It all started when Bhagat asked film critics not to unnecessarily criticize last film of the late actor.
He tweeted, “Sushant’s last film releases this week. I want to tell the snob and elitist critics right now, write sensibly. Don’t act oversmart. Don’t write rubbish. Be fair and sensible. Don’t try your dirty tricks. You have ruined enough lives. Now stop. We’ll be watching.”
Film critics Anupama Chopra replied to Bhagat’s tweet by writing, “Each time you think the discourse can’t get lower, it does!”
Giving back to Anupama Chopra, Bhagat wrote in his tweet, “Ma’am, when your husband publicly bullied me, shamelessly collected all the best story awards, tried denying me credit for my story and drove me close to suicide, and you just watched, where was your discourse?”
Mr Bhagat’s book ‘Five Point Someone’ was the basis for 2009 blockbuster ‘3 Idiots’, starring actors Aamir Khan, R Madhavan and Sharman Joshi as the titular “idiots.” The film was produced by Vidhu Vinod Chopra who, Mr Bhagat claimed at the time of release, had been unfair to him over writing credits for the film.
‘3 Idiots’ became instantly controversial upon its release in 2009. Vidhu Vinod Chopra and director Rajkumar Hirani had bought the rights to ‘Five Point Someone’ and while the words “based on the novel by Chetan Bhagat” do appear in the film, they are placed in the closing credits rather than the opening titles where Mr Hirani and writer Abhijat Joshi are credited for the story and screenplay.
Mr Hirani and Mr Joshi collected the Best Story prize at the Filmfare and IIFA Awards the year ‘3 Idiots’ released.