Kangana Ranaut’s Queen 2 ‘unauthorised,’ claims Phantom Studios; files Rs 250 cr lawsuit | Bollywood News
3 min readMumbaiJul 7, 2026 11:54 AM Earlier this year, Kangana Ranaut announced that after years of trying to make it happen, she finally reunited with director Vikas Bahl for Queen 2, the sequel to their 2013 cult coming-of-age film Queen. Last week, the duo even wrapped up shooting, calling it a “wonderful experience” as they cut the cake on the last day. However, little did they know that the film would run into legal trouble just five days later.
Phantom Studios alleges unauthorized sequel
Phantom Studios has now filed a lawsuit in Bombay High Court for Rs 250 crore against JioStar, which is backing Queen 2, alleging it’s an unauthorized sequel. The production house had reportedly reached out to JioStar multiple times for settlement discussions, but the latter hasn’t responded to the repeated requests yet. Meanwhile, Queen 2, which went on floors at the start of this year, has now wrapped up shoot and even entered its post-production stage.
Despite multiple requests of settlement discussions not being entertained either JioStudios or Bahl, Phantom Studios had to take the legal action route, as reported Mid-Day. Phantom Studios holds 50% rights of Queen, including the right to make sequels. It hasn’t consented to any sequels, adaptations or derivative works of the film so far.
Hory of Queen
Queen was originally produced Phantom Films, which was founded Bahl, Anurag Kashyap, Vikramaditya Motwane, and Madhu Mantena. It even won the National Award for Best Feature Film in Hindi for Queen. However, after Bahl’s name came up during the MeToo movement, it led to disagreements between the four founding members.
As the founding members began leaving the company one one, Phantom Film was disbanded in 2019. However, Mantena, along with producer Sheetal Talwar, revived the company in 2022 as Phantom Studios, which produced Advait Chandan’s romantic comedy Loveyapa, starring Junaid Khan and Khushi Kapoor, last year.
After the success of Queen, four South remakes were also announced in 2018. The Tamil remake, directed Ramesh Aravind, starred Kajal Aggarwal in Kangana’s role. The Telugu remake, That Is Mahalaxmi, starred Tamannaah Bhatia as the lead in a film helmed Prasanth Varma. Zam Zam, the Malayalam remake directed Neelakanta, featured Manjima Mohan in the lead. And the Kannada remake, also directed Aravind, starred Parul Yadav.
The four remakes, which were scheduled to be released at the same time, could never see light of the day. While it was logical issues that delayed the shoot first, the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) objected to certain scenes in a couple of remakes. The remakes, which were being produced Manu Kumaran, could eventually never release owing to an ownership dispute.Story continues below this ad
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Meanwhile, the original Queen, written Anvita Dutt, revolved around Kangana’s character Rani, who after being ditched her fiancé (Rajkummar Rao), decides to go on a solo honeymoon instead. During her trip to Paris, she makes unlikely friends, including Lisa Haydon’s Vijayalakshmi, and eventually gives her ring back to her fiancé, who wants to reconcile and marry her.
