Hari Puttar Wins…

…in the Hari Puttar Vs. Harry Potter battle that I was talking about some days ago. The Delhi High Court has dismissed a plea by Harry Potter copyright owners Warner Bros. against Mirchi Movies, the makers of an upcoming Hindi movie titled Hari Puttar: A Comedy of Terrors.

Dismissing the plea against the Hindi-language film, the court said Warner Bros., which owns the rights to Harry Potter movies, had made a “belated attempt to trip up” the film.

“Justice Reva Khetrapal said the class of viewers was such that they would not get confused with the title of the film,” Pratibha Singh, the defence counsel, told Reuters. “A Hindi-speaking, rural child would not have heard of Harry Potter, while the English-speaking, urban viewer would be so well versed with Harry Potter that there would be no reason for them to be confused,” Singh quoted the judge as saying. [Full Report]

Well, if you see the comments on my earlier post you’d notice that Liju had prophesied it spot on . But whilst it may be true that a “Hindi-speaking rural child” may not know who Harry Potter is, he is not the target audience of the Hari Puttar movie. It is the multiplex-going, popcorn-and-ice-cream-loving, pogo-and-cartoon-network-watching urban kid that the makers might wanna woo into persuading their parents to watch the flick whose name sounds like a desi version of the famous boy wizard!

That’s that then. Meanwhile, the fans of the boy wizard (including some grown up ones at the FreeHyderabad discussion boards) shall have to wait till 2009 for the next movie instalment. The studio have postponed the theatrical release of Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince from a November 2008 release to sometime in mid-2009 . Whilst I speculated it might have been done to avoid a clash with Quantum of Solace, other wiseheads are saying that the studio has already attained its financial targets for 2008 (owing to a certain Joker and a caped crusader) hence the postponement so as to ensure a rosy 2009 as well!!!

Harry Potter Vs. Hari Puttar

Was about to post a random() post about the theme change when this Reuters news item caught my eye:

India’s “Hari Puttar” caught in Harry Potter spell: 

Hollywood’s Warner Bros., which owns the rights to the Harry Potter movies, is suing an Indian production company whose new film is called “Hari Puttar: A Comedy of Terrors,” the studio said on Wednesday.

The studio had started proceedings against the makers of “Hari Puttar” over similarities to the international film and literary phenomenon, said Warner Bros. spokeswoman Deborah Lincoln.

[Full Article]

Now what can I say about this! The (apparent) similarity in the title with the famous boy wizard’s name is sure to raise a few eyebrows. But it is also true that Hari is a common-enough name in Hindi and Puttar is a Punjabi moniker for ‘son’. Say if a Punjabi couple’s son’s name is Harjeet Singh, wouldn’t his parents call him Hari Puttar?

But the conglomerate that is Warner Bros. might not understand it. Seen from their point of view, they’ve spent a huge amount in securing the copyrights and they have to safeguard it at all costs. Even if it means suing production companies who dare to title their ventures with names which are similar to populist ones.

As William Shakespeare once put it, What’s in a name?

BTW, the tagline of the movie is “A Comedy of Terrors”. Wonder if tomorrow any Shakespearean rights-holder would come forward and sue the makers for that!!!