Neerja's family and producers fighting over profit sharing

Atul Kasbekar, whose company Bling Entertainment produced Neerja, today called the Bhanot family's plans to move court over sharing of the film's profits as "unfortunate". He said that the two sides had a "clear contractual arrangement" and while his company is sticking to the contract, the Bhanot family is violating it.

The family of Neerja Bhanot - on whom the film is based - is planning to claim in court that Bling Entertainment did not honour its commitment to share 10 percent of the movie's collections. However, Kasbekar, the firm's chief managing director, said in a statement that all financial transactions post release have been shared with the Bhanot family "immediately and in a transparent manner."

He also alleged that Bling Entertainment had offered the share of its profits to the family - as agreed upon previously - but the Bhanots refused it as they want a share of Fox Star India's profits, which was not a part of their contract. He calls this "a retrospective negotiation" and completely different from what was agreed upon by the two sides.
He released the following statement on social media:

"At the outset, again, we'd like to say that we are immensely grateful that the Bhanot family trusted us with making a movie on the life of braveheart, Neerja Bhanot. We started the exercise of making a difficult film with utmost honesty and the effusive acclaim the film has received is testament to the fact that we succeeded in our endeavour.

The facts of the case are simply thus:

Bling had acquired the rights to make 'Neerja' from the Bhanot family. The agreement between Bhanots and Bling clearly spelt out that Bhanots would be paid a fixed upfront amount (which was paid as per the timelines) and a variable amount, which was to be computed as a share of net profits that Bling would receive.

It was always abundantly clear that we would partner with a studio, in this case FoxStar India.
The Bhanot family was always aware of the same and have in fact met the studio reps on many occasions.
To imply otherwise is simply untrue.

Integrity is a very important aspect of Bling's values and Bling is committed to meeting all its contractual commitments.

All financial transactions post release have been shared with the Bhanot family immediately and in a transparent manner. Their share of the profits, which is a share of ours, has been immediately offered.

They have declined to accept the same and now wish to get a share of the studio profits. This is effectively a retrospective negotiation and not as per what is signed by them years ago.

It is unfortunate that despite having a clear contractual arrangement the Bhanots have decided to dispute the financial understanding at this belated stage.

To reiterate, the amounts due to the Bhanots, as per the existing contract have been repeatedly offered by us to them.

To imply anything otherwise, is simply untrue."

Meanwhile, Neerja's brother Aneesh Bhanot defended his family's decision to PTI. "Neerja always said, do your duty, come what may and never tolerate injustice. This is what I can tell you at this stage," the news agency quoted him as saying.

Directed by Ram Madhvani, Neerja bagged the Best Feature Film in Hindi award at the 64th National Film Awards this year.

Neerja, who was the senior flight purser of Pan-Am 73 Bombay-Karachi-Frankfurt-New York flight, was killed two days before her 23rd birthday, while trying to save the lives of the passengers after the plane was hijacked by terrorists on September 5, 1986.

She was honoured with the Ashoka Chakra, country's highest peacetime gallantry award for bravery, in 1987, for her act of bravery and sacrifice.