Director Nag Ashwin’s dystopian sci-fi action film, Kalki 2898 AD, unveiled its first trailer on Monday. After witnessing a couple of postponements and delays, the film, starring Prabhas, Amitabh Bachchan, Deepika Padukone, Kamal Haasan, and Disha Patani, is all set to be release in theatres on June 27. After watching the new trailer, audiences drew parallels between Kalki’s post-apocalyptic world and Hollywood movies like Dune, and Mad Max: Fury Road. Now, Sung Choi, a concept illustrator and designer, who has worked with Marvel Studios, Disney, and Warner Bros, has taken to social media to call out the makers of Kalki 2898 AD, Vyjayanthi Movies, for seemingly copying his artwork. The contentious frame can be seen in the beginning of the film’s trailer.
Choi, sharing a collage featuring his illustration and a still from the film’s trailer, wrote on social media, “Unauthorized use of the artwork is a bad practice. This makes me question doing art in this lawless environment. @Kalki2898AD @VyjayanthiFilms #kalki2898ad.” On his website, ArtStation, the ‘original’ illustration was published 10 years ago.
After Choi criticised Vyjayanthi Movies for plagiarising his work, netizens came in support of the artist and slammed the production house. “I hope you pursue legal action if possible. This is awful,” wrote a user in the comments section of his Instagram post. Another person wrote, “The whole trailer gives off the vibe of Epoch, Mad Max, Dune and other films. The trailer of the film gives me the vibe of Saga comic book series published by Image Comics. A lot of designs from the trailer of the film are ripped off from the Halo series and Death Stranding too. Idk how some of the concept designers who worked on the film can stay silent.”
The conversation also landed on Reddit, where users urged that the artist sue the makers of the film. “This is shameful and disappointing. They just copied and pasted a 10-year-old artwork on literally the first frame of the trailer. Even the weapons and other stuff look directly ‘inspired’ by so many games and movies. I wonder what else people will spot which will be without any credits. I’m too afraid to post this in Tollywood sub because of fanboys,” read a post on Reddit. While some criticised the makers, others defended Ashwin for his lack of expertise in the VFX department. “Do you think Nag Ashwin knows how his VFX team got this image? He merely describes the scene and ‘experts’ deliver him the end product. Nag Ashwin is a decent person – let’s not assume anything.”
In 2023, an animation studio, Vaanarsena, claimed that Prabhas and Saif-Ali Khan starrer Adipurush‘s poster is a copy of their work. The studio took to Instagram and re-shared a collage of the Adipurush poster and the Lord Shiva still. “Such a shame T-Series films should mention the original creator who developed the artwork,” their now-deleted Instagram story read. Vivek Ram, the artist from Vaanarsena Studio, also took to LinkedIn and accused the makers of “’blatantly ripping off’” their artwork. Vivek described his waking the day following the poster release as being “very disappointing.” He wrote, “To my surprise , what i saw was a blatant rip off , of a very old piece of artwork of mine of “the legend of Ram”. My artwork had become popular and many have ripped it off in the past. something I’ve gotten used to . But to see it done on such a large scale was disheartening.”
In the past, Lisa Ray censured the makers of Prabhas’ Saaho for allegedly plagiarising artwork from Bengaluru-based artist Shilo Shiv Suleman for one of the film’s posters. In an Instagram post, she shared two pictures, one of the original artwork, and another a poster of Saaho, shared by actor Shraddha Kapoor, featuring actors Prabhas and Kapoor.
Kalki 2898 AD stars Prabhas as Bhairava, an avatar of the Hindu god Vishnu, with Amitabh Bachchan portraying the immortal Ashwatthama. With an estimated budget of $75 million, the film is set to be one of India’s most ambitious and expensive productions. The film aims for a global release to emulate the success of SS Rajamouli’s RRR in 2022.
