Madras Hc Halts Telugu Dub Mohanlaldrishyam 3 On Ott Over Rights Dispute

The Madras High Court has issued an interim injunction restraining the makers of the Malayalam thriller Drishyam 3 from releasing its Telugu dubbed version on OTT platforms, just a day ahead of the film’s scheduled digital premiere. The order was passed on a plea moved by film production company, Rajkumar Theatre Pvt Ltd.

To understand why a company that didn’t produce Drishyam 3 can stake a claim over its Telugu release, it helps to look at how the franchise has been handled in the past. The original Drishyam (2013), directed by Jeethu Joseph and starring Mohanlal, became the first Malayalam film to gross over Rs 50 crore worldwide and was remade across multiple Indian languages. Rajkumar Sethupathi, who runs Rajkumar Theatre, acquired the rights to remake the film in Telugu, and on Kamal Haasan’s suggestion, brought Venkatesh on board for the lead role, with the film eventually directed by Sripriya and titled Drushyam (2014). The Telugu version went on to become one of the highest grossing Telugu films of that year.

When the Malayalam sequel Drishyam 2 released in 2021, its Telugu remake, again titled Drushyam 2, was jointly produced by D. Suresh Babu under Suresh Productions, Antony Perumbavoor under Aashirvad Cinemas, the same banner behind the Malayalam originals, and Rajkumar Sethupathi under Rajkumar Theatres, this time with Jeethu Joseph himself directing the Telugu version. That joint production history across two instalments is what underlies Rajkumar Theatre’s current position, that it holds standing rights to the Telugu language version of the franchise, rights it says extend to a straightforward dubbed release of the third film as well, even though no separate Telugu remake of Drishyam 3 was eventually made.

The court noted that despite private notices being served on the respondents, none of them entered appearance or were present before the court. With the film’s OTT release scheduled for June 18 on Amazon Prime Video, the judge granted temporary protection to the petitioner, halting the Telugu dubbed release until the matter is examined further. It’s worth being clear about what an interim injunction actually does here, it doesn’t decide who is right, it simply freezes the situation, in this case the Telugu dub specifically, until the underlying ownership dispute is properly heard and resolved. The order affects only the Telugu dubbed version, while the Malayalam original remains unaffected and continues to stream as planned.

This is not the first round of legal sparring around the film’s digital release. The matter had first come up for hearing on May 20, when the Madras High Court issued formal notices to the respondents, returnable within three weeks. Separately, on April 8, the Delhi High Court had restrained the Malayalam filmmakers from creating any third party OTT rights in the film, granting interim protection to Amazon Seller Services Pvt Ltd in a related arbitration dispute, indicating that the streaming rights to Drishyam 3 had already been contested on a separate front even before this latest order.

Directed by Jeethu Joseph, Drishyam 3 features Mohanlal returning as Georgekutty alongside Meena and Ansiba Hassan, continuing one of Malayalam cinema’s most commercially durable franchises.