Atlee on battling plagiarism accusations: ‘A huge set of people want to bring me down’

Whenever Atlee comes out with a film, he inevitably gets called out for being unoriginal. This criticism has been against him since his debut film, Raja Rani, which was called a modern rehash of Mani Ratnam’s classic Mouna Ragam (1986). His second film, Theri was called out for being similar to Baasaha and many other films. Mersal and Bigil also faced similar complaints. Recently, Jawan was called out for being a mixture of a lot of Tamil films like Thaai Naadu, Anniyan, Kaithiyin Diary, Master, Ramana etc. In a recent interview, Atlee addressed the accusations.

Atlee said, “When I did Raja Rani, I wanted to do something about the increasing number of shattering families. But there was already a milestone film (Mouna Ragaam)… So, at one point, I thought that I shouldn’t do a film that’s even a bit similar to others. However, there’s not a single story that hasn’t been done before. I sit and genuinely work on my scripts. When someone just passes a comment in two seconds comparing mine to other films, I will never think my effort, honesty, and labour are all replicas. It’s their thoughts. Of course, I have made films which have shared storylines with other films. For example, Theri has different versions before and after its release. But when I do it, it is called copied. Copying is easy. If that’s the case, everyone can do it.”

He added, “In the creative field, you end up making similar stories. That doesn’t mean I copy it. It can be inspired. I was inspired by MGR (Ramachandran) songs and that’s why I make intro songs. I take risks… In 3o years, no one has told Shah Rukh Khan sir the kind of story I had and went with such a proposal. Do you think only I face such criticism in the world of cinema? Many great filmmakers and creative minds have faced it.”

Atlee added that such criticism is also because of a huge set of people who want to bring him down. “A huge set of people want some weapon to hit me. My film has become a hit… so they can’t say anything about it. It has earned money too… so can’t say anything about that as well. So, what’s the one way to bring me down? Mostly, such criticisms only come from this set of people. It is because of the thought, ‘He shouldn’t win’. Do you think Rajinikanth sir or Vijay sir or Ajith sir didn’t have this problem? We have to fight and move on. Will Shah Rukh sir call me without knowing all this?”