A day after the teaser of Ekta Kapoor's same-sex web series 'His Story dropped on social media, the makers unveiled its first poster featuring Mrinal Dutt and Satyadeep Mishra spooning on a bed.
However, in no time, the poster was called out for plagiarism by 2015 film 'LOEV' art director and film marketing strategist Jahan Bakshi.
Not only the posters appear to be the same, the film was also based on queer relationships.
Bakshi took to Twitter and wrote, "Bro @altbalaji are you okay? I mean if you need someone to design posters, I can help you, I promise it doesn't cost that much."
In a subsequent tweet, he added, "This poster for LOEV was designed by @TalkPigeonCo and illustrated by Rohan Pore. We spent months on it. Investing solid time/money on a poster for an indie film is difficult. And yet, a studio which surely has the resources to commission original designs opts to steal it. Sad."
However, a spokesperson from ALTBalaji said, "We at ALTBalaji hold every artist's representation of work as paramount and will never intentionally pick up another artist's hard work. We have got multiple creative partners working on our show posters and are doing our due diligence on this.”
Meanwhile 'LOEV' director Sudhanshu Saria also weighed on and wrote on Twitter, "Woke up to find that our painstakingly illustrated, original poster for @loevfilm has just been blatantly ripped off by the geniuses at @altbalaji @ZEE5Premium for their show #HisStoryy."
"Thirteen months of back and forth and so many drafts by the amazing minds at @TalkPigeonCo with oversight by @jahanbakshi and amazingly illustrated by artist @rohanpore just ripped off without any decency. Am glad they liked our poster; am glad they're telling a queer story but why do this? What is the need? We made our poster with no funds to speak of. Why have a massive machinery like @altbalaji @ZEE5India if you can't even come up with your own poster? Alerting my fellow artists @satyadeepmisra @MrinalDutt02 @Suparn -- if you didn't know, now you do. @ektarkapoor @TweetBaljit @ThisIsHowWeDing Let's all do better,” he added.
'His Story is scheduled to start streaming on ALTBalaji and ZEE5 Premium from April 25.
The series, backed by Ding Entertainment, also stars Satyadeep Mishra and Priyamani Raj, who will be seen in the role of Kunal and Sakshi, a married couple.
"Their lives will intertwine when Sakshi calls Preet for her restaurant opening, not knowing that her perfect family is about to go for a toss with unexpected turn of events," the synopsis read.
