The National-Award winning maverick filmmaker, Madhur Bhandarkar, released the first official poster of his reality-based film "Heroine" on the micro-blogging site on Sunday.
Though the poster received phenomenal response, with over a lakh viewers within hours of being launched, recent reports have raised questions about its originality.
The latest buzz is that the poster featuring lead heroine Kareena Kapoor lolling upturned on the couch encircled with magazines and a classy wine glass has a striking similarity with the cover of Siddharth Dhanvant Sanghvi's book "The Lost Flamingoes of Bombay."
If one juxtaposes the two posters and look closely, it clearly appears that "Heroine"'s poster is at least inspired if not blatantly copied from Sanghvi's book cover - both in terms of concept and photography.
Moreover, his book's leading character "Zaira" has been portrayed as a reclusive queen of Bollywood, which again matches the theme of Bhandarkar's film where Kareena plays the role of a glamorous Bollywood superstar "Mahi Arora."
The story of "Heroine" revolves around "Mahi" and depicts the real life of a superstar in the world of glitz and glamour.
The film has been given an 'A' certificate by the censor board since it is based on the bold subject and involves intimate and sensitive scenes.
However, on the orders of CBFC, the smoking and love-making scenes have been blurred for the television promos that will be released on July 25.
After delivering a trail of several superhit films like "Fashion", "Page 3", "Chandni Bar", "Corporate" and many more, Bhandarkar has garnered loyal audience for his much-hyped upcoming film.
He took to Twitter to thank his fans for "enormous and overwhelming response to the posters", however, he hasn't commented or clarified on the aforementioned similarity.
Take a look at the posters above and judge for yourself!
