The controversy around Oh My God 2 is getting bigger by the day. It all began when actor Paresh Rawal, in an interview to Vickey Lalwani, alleged that the story and idea for OMG 2 was his, but he was not given his due credit. Interestingly, his wife Swaroop Paresh Rawal was credited as co-producer on it. OMG 2 was a spiritual sequel to the 2012 original Oh My God! which had featured Paresh alongside Akshay Kumar.
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Now, OMG 2’s co producer Ashwin Varde has reacted strongly to Paresh’s accusations. He says his allegations are “untrue” and “unsubstantiated”.
Ashwin says it was Amit Rai, OMG 2’s director, who had narrated OMG 2’s subject initially to him, “When I first heard it, my immediate reaction was that this subject resembled the format of OMG totally. Then, Amit told me that he had written it in the OMG format because Paresh Rawal had asked him to stay as close to OMG as possible in terms of the narrative. Paresh had worked with him in his earlier film, ‘Road To Sangam’ and they both shared a good camaraderie. But I had a concern – OMG cannot be made without Akshay Kumar or his approval, since I was aware that the IP rights of the film belonged to him.”
When Amit asked the same to Paresh, he was told the IP belonged to him, “That’s when it began clear to me what Paresh was trying to do. He was trying to make a version of OMG under a different name, which is unethical and unprofessional. It was trying to steal someone else’s creation and property, and use it under a guise. For me, that is nothing short of a theft.”
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Paresh alleged in the podcast that he had approached Ajay Devgn and Salman Khan initially to play the role later played by Akshay Kumar in OMG 2. However, they tuened it down. To this, Ashwin says, “They did so because they all told him – this is OMG and that is Akshay Kumar’s film. Why should we tread into something that belongs to him? Or go and get his approval, they all said. I realized then that the script needed to be protected and that’s when my company (Wakaoo Films) acquired the script. The script was and is still registered under the name of Amit Rai who is the SOLE writer of the film. It is completely unfair and unwarranted on Paresh’s part to have expected any kind of credit for the film’s script – since this is something he never mentioned to me in our many meetings. Perhaps because it is simply not true.”
Ashwin, during a casting meeting for OMG 2, mentioned to Paresh that he would have to take the script once to Akshay as it resembled OMG. “His was emphatic that this film cannot be OMG – he kept repeating that without giving any plausible reason. It became obvious after a point that he wanted to keep Akshay Kumar out from the project for reasons best known to him,” says Ashwin.
“I must also state that Paresh Rawal was given due credit as the PRODUCER in OMG-2, even though he had made zero contribution to it. He chose to give the credits to his wife, Swaroop Paresh Rawal and his business partner, Hemal Thakkar.”
“Not just that, Paresh Rawal was also paid a stipulated amount of money for OMG-2, which he conveniently forgets to mention in his recent interview.”
“I would like to state again that nobody tried to cheat Paresh Rawal of anything. The only thing we are guilty of is stopping him from doing the same.”
