Exclusive | Hollywood concept artist reveals Kalki 2898 AD makers approached him, later copied his work in trailer: ‘Too much of a coincidence’

Beck defended his claims against the argument of art being subjective, noting that while it might not be immediately obvious to non-artists, the artist community, including his friends, clearly saw the references to his work. He said, “It might be difficult to see the plagiarism when you are not an artist. You might not see it immediately but all my artist friends that I have talked to and the artist community are very clear that this was referenced from my work and you can see clearly that the main takeaways are the colour palettes, it is the same, and also the shapes. It is not an exact copy but the shapes are similar. It is too much of a coincidence because they also contacted me to work on this film. So, they know my portfolio and they have seen my work so it is too much of a coincidence.”

Regarding legal action, Oliver Beck admitted that it would be challenging since his work wasn’t directly copied. He said, “In case of legal repercussions, in my case, I can’t do much because my work wasn’t directly copied. In order of legal repercussions, it has to be really really obvious. Like in Sung Choi’s case because they really copy-pasted his work.”

Beck also admitted that there is little an artist can do when faced with such situations. “There is nothing much that an artist can do in these cases that happen quite often actually. The best thing you can do is do a copyright strike on YouTube and get some attention to the matter but other than that you just have to deal with it. You can’t do much,” he said.

This incident marked the first time Oliver Beck’s work was copied on such a large scale in an Indian film. Previously, minor instances of plagiarism had occurred, but this was the most significant case he had encountered. He said, “This is the first time that an artwork of mine was plagiarised on such a big scale. It has happened before but they were very minor things. This is the first time my work got duplicated in an Indian film.”

The experience has negatively impacted Beck’s view of the Indian film industry. “I actually thought it could be a viable option to work in the Indian film industry because it is always good to be diverse as an artist. Also, in Hollywood, there was a strike going on and there was not much work there. But after this incident, I talked to a few artists from India and they told me that it isn’t a nice industry to work in. As they spend a lot of money on actors, there is no budget left to pay artists, and they resort to plagiarizing and doing some cheap work and it is really unpleasant. I spoke to another person who worked on Kalki 2898 AD but they quit after only a week because of a bad work environment. I have received a lot of negative feedback and now I am not interested in working in that industry.”

Despite reaching out to the makers of Kalki 2898 AD, no response has been received regarding the allegations.

Directed by Nag Ashwin, Kalki 2898 AD features some of the biggest names in the Indian film industry, including Amitabh Bachchan, Deepika Padukone, Prabhas, Kamal Hassan, and Disha Patani. The film is set to release in theatres on June 27.