Javed Akhtar copied two Hollywood films and wrote Amitabh Bachchan’s Main Azaad Hoon, claims Tinnu Anand: ‘We thought we were making an original’

The actor-director shared that on the day the film released in theatres, “Opposition released a film on Doordarshan, Meet John Doe. More than Meet John Doe, it (Main Azaad Hoon) was Network.” “Network and this was the same story but Javed didn’t want us to watch that film. He wanted to show that he had written the original story even though it wasn’t an original story,” he added.

Tinnu Anand remarked that he felt “very let down” by Javed and said, “I would have liked to see Network. I would have liked to see Meet John Doe and compare our script to theirs. Our script was superior but it was important to watch the original.” He shared that they later asked Javed as to why he hid the fact that he had copied the script.

“We later asked Javed saab, ‘Why did you hide?’ He said ‘I didn’t want you all to get inspired by… If Amitabh had seen it, he would have done it in the same way. I didn’t want that.’ That was a lie,” he recalled.

Main Azaad Hoon also starred Shabana Azmi and Anupam Kher. It did not perfom well at the box office.