Hansal Mehta accuses ‘Lucky Baskhar’ producer Naga Vamsi of ‘borrowing’ from ‘Scam’ series

Mehta's allegations came after Vamsi in a roundtable interview said that the Hindi film industry focuses on making films for Mumbai's posh areas like Bandra and Juhu, directing his comments at veteran producer Boney Kapoor

New Delhi: Director Hansal Mehta has claimed that producer Naga Vamsi’s hit Telugu movie “Lucky Baskhar” has borrowed “liberally” from his successful web series “Scam”, while labelling the filmmaker as “arrogant”.

Mehta’s allegations came after Vamsi in a roundtable interview said that the Hindi film industry focuses on making films for Mumbai’s posh areas like Bandra and Juhu, directing his comments at veteran producer Boney Kapoor.

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Reacting to the producer’s remarks, Mehta in an X post said: “Since this person Mr Naga Vamsi was being so arrogant and now that I know who he is: His latest hit as a producer Lucky Bhaskar has borrowed liberally from the Scam series.” The director said he was “happy” that the story of a Hindi series like “Scam” was translated successfully into another language.

“Reason I brought this up is that I feel happy that stories travel and a film in another language succeeds in replicating what has worked for us. Everybody wins. Nobody is bigger than the other. That narrative is destructive. Arrogance is even worse,” he added in his post.

“Lucky Baskhar”, set in the 1990s, follows a lower-middle-class man (Dulquer Salmaan) who begins engaging in financial scams after struggling to support his family while battling debt and humiliation.

Whereas, the “Scam” franchise has explored stories of the biggest financial scandals in Indian history, with the first season being based on the 1992 Indian stock market scam committed by notorious stockbroker Harshad Mehta (Pratik Gandhi). Season two revolved around the real-life story of Abdul Karim Telgi (Gagan Dev Riar) who was involved in the 2003 stamp paper counterfeiting scandal worth Rs 30,000 crore.

During the roundtable, Vamsi also said that “Mumbai didn’t sleep” after “Pushpa 2: The Rule” earned over Rs 80 crore at the box office in a single day.

“Chill dude whoever you are… I live in Mumbai. Been sleeping really well,” Mehta posted on X said previously.

Besides Mehta, “Pathaan” director Siddharth Anand also took a swipe at Vamsi. “Mumbai has always been the city that never sleeps 😉 It’s ok, I guess some people don’t know our real Mumbai! (sic)” Anand said, reposting Mehta’s comments on X. “And one more thing. I have infact lived ONLY in Bandra and Juhu both! Just fyi (sic)” he added in another post.

Arrogance leads to downfall, said trade analyst Sumit Kadel, as he criticised Vamsi for “disrespecting” Kapoor.

Responding to Kadel, Vamsi asked the analyst to not jump to conclusions based on one clip.

“You don’t need to teach us how to respect elders, we respect boney ji more than u guys do and there was no disrespect towards boney ji in that conversation it was a healthy discussion, me and boney ji had a nice laugh and hugged each other after the interview… So please don’t come to your conclusions with just what you saw (sic)” the producer wrote.