11 Years Of Partner: When Will Smith almost SUED the makers of the Salman Khan-starrer!

It has been eleven years since Salman Khan and Govinda came together for the first time as two pivotal heroes of a feature presentation in the David Dhawan-directed Partner. The film, which tells the story of a love guru (Salman Khan) and a commoner (Govinda) who was seeking to get romantically involved with his boss (Katrina Kaif) went on to become a huge success since, as per Google, it went on to gross over 138 crores worldwide. That sure indeed made Khan’s younger brother, Sohail, a very happy producer!

But, all that fortune that the makers of the two-hero story stood a good chance to go down the drain as the makers of the Will Smith & Kevin James-starrer Hitch were going to sue EROS, Kay Sera Sera & Sohail (Who produced Partner) for a whopping amount of 30 million US dollars back in ‘07. The complainants were the producer/copyright holder of Hitch, Sony Pictures Entertainment (Now known as Sony Pictures Network Productions) and Smith’s production banner, Overbrook Entertainment, as the two films shared way too many similarities for the Bollywood version to not come under a radar.

Back then, James Lassiter, one of the partners at Overbrook Entertainment, was quoted saying that, “We are looking into the matter and consulting Sony Pictures on how to take the matter forward.”

On the other hand, Sunil Lulla, the managing director at EROS Entertainment was quoted saying that, “We have no idea about this development and I have not seen Hitch to remake it into Partner.”

Soon, the controversy died its natural death and nothing further was heard. However, it was speculated that the Sony was, at the time, planning on producing and remaking some of its Hollywood hits for the Indian audience and making some original content as well. And, the legal suit was nothing more than a way to make their name known. On the other hand, some publications debated that Partner wasn’t exactly a remake of Hitch, but was, instead, a Re-Mix.

It seems like in one way or the other, someone has always been coming at Salman Khan, right?

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