Fans appreciated the trailer of Kalki 2898 AD, released on June 9. The movie, written and directed by Nag Ashwin, features movie stars like Prabhas, Bollywood megastar Amitabh Bachchan, Kamal Haasan and Deepika Padukone. Now, a South Korean artist has accused the makers of plagiarising his original work.
Sung Choi shared a screenshot of the frame he is speaking about. It’s the opening scene of the Kalki 2898 AD trailer, which shows a wartorn dystopian city. The frame in the movie, set in a post-apocalyptic world in the year 2898 AD, looks strikingly similar to Sung Choi’s artwork, which was published 10 years ago.
“Unauthorized use of artwork is a bad practice. I sometimes even question doing art in this lawless environment,” wrote the artist while sharing the post on Instagram. As soon as the post was published, netizens started reacting to it.
“This is so horrible. The very first frame of the trailer is plagiarised. I wonder how much worse it gets,” wrote one user.
“This is totally shame on them, the most sad thing is this is the intro shot of the production house,” came from another.
“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 halo series and death stranding too. Idk how some of the concept designers who worked on the film can stay silent,” alleged another user.
Sung Choi is a concept artist who has worked for Marvel Studios, Disney, Warner Bros, Bungie, Wizards of the Coast and Netflix Animation, according to Concept Art World. Born in South Korea, he moved to Los Angeles to study Digital Media at Otis College of Art and Design.
