Kabir Khan recalls how Aditya Chopra put the might of the YRF legal team behind him when ‘self-styled’ producer took him to court

He said, “I don’t want to take names now, but we met so many people during that one year (before YRF) and some of them were self-styled producers as well. They told us they’d make the movie, but they weren’t even real producers. No documents were signed, we’d met over coffee, and they declared themselves the producer.”

He continued, “When Yash Raj came on board, they said that they were the producer. They took the matter to court, and of course, they overstepped. They said that it was their story. That’s the big mistake they made. When it went to court, the High Court judge went through the case and said, ‘Here’s a person who’s spent two years in Afghanistan, has done four documentaries, and then here are you, who’s never been to Kabul. You want me to believe this is your story?'”

The judge dismissed the case, and Kabir said that Aditya Chopra put the might of the YRF legal team behind him for support. But it was still a very stressful time for him, because it was his first film. “It was depressing in those days. You used to wake up in the morning with a sword hanging over your head,” he said.

The filmmaker has since made hits such as Ek Tha Tiger and Bajrangi Bhaijaan. His most recent film was the sports drama 83, starring Ranveer Singh as former India cricket captain Kapil Dev.