US-based filmmaker files lawsuit to halt Akshay Kumar's Mission Mangal

Akshay Kumar's Mission Mangal has landed in controversy after a US-based filmmaker filed a lawsuit to stop production of the film.

Radha Bharadwaj in her lawsuit claims the film borrows from her script, which she had shared with Atul Kasbekar. The film revolves around the women engineers working on a space mission.

Kasbekar's company reportedly signed a non-disclosure agreement that prohibited them from disclosing Bharadwaj's project to anyone without her prior written consent. However, she later came to know that Kasbekar had shown the script to Vidya Balan. Bharadwaj was not pleased with this and cancelled her agreement.

In her suit, Bharadwaj also claims that she had registered her screenplay with the US Copyright Office in 2016 after the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) had notified her of its support for her movie and arranged for her to interview several of its engineers.

Akshay recently took to Twitter to talk about the project, writing: “A powerful true story of ordinary people with extraordinary dreams, on an unheard of a mission to achieve the impossible. #MissionMangal will come alive on 15th August 2019. See you at the theatres.”

Besides Kumar and Balan, the film also stars Sonakshi Sinha, Taapsee Pannu, Sharman Joshi, Kirti Kulhari and Nithya Menen.