New Delhi: The first look of ‘Kala Hiran: The Battle for Legacy’, a film reportedly inspired by the 1998 blackbuck poaching case involving Salman Khan, was released on 13 June. However, the makers of the film are in serious legal trouble after Khan’s legal team issued a notice calling the film “defamatory, prejudicial and a gross violation of Salman Khan’s personality rights”.
Following the release of the trailer, actor Sonu Mishra, who worked alongside Salman Khan in Sikandar (2026), revealed that he was originally cast to portray a character based on Khan. According to Mishra, two days of shooting were over before he decided to leave the project after realizing the film’s narrative was portraying Khan negatively.
Mishra alleged that the makers had not taken Khan’s permission. After spending over a decade in the industry, Mishra did not want to be associated with a project that portrayed a character in a biased manner.
“Being a lead actor, I was not initially told about the one-sided narrative. Later, they said I would have to speak negatively about Salman Khan in front of the media. These things are against my ethics,” he told the media.
In the two-and-a-half-minute first-look clip, Khan is portrayed through a character named Ayyan Khan, played by Kashif Iqbal Khan. The actor is wearing Khan’s signature Firoza bracelet and a police uniform referring to Khan’s iconic look in Dabangg (2010). The trailer also introduces a character named Lion Bishnoi, described as the biggest underworld don after Dawood Ibrahim, who seeks revenge against Ayyan Khan.
Actor Govind Namdev, who plays an advocate in the film, claimed in an interview that he was unaware during filming that his character was part of a story inspired by Salman Khan and that the actor would be portrayed negatively.
“I was kept in the dark. The makers used me. Salman and I are from the same industry. He is my friend and I can never do something that goes against him,” Namdev told Amar Ujala.
Meanwhile, producer Amit Jani, who previously backed Udaipur Files (2025), shared a video on social media on 5 June in which he tore up a legal notice.
“This is my answer to your notice,” he said in the one-minute clip, claiming he was not afraid of threats from the D-Company, a Mumbai-based organised crime syndicate, or others from “Salman’s toolkit”.
(Edited by Janaki Pande)