Producer T Siva of Ammacreations rails against director Atlee’s remuneration for Mersal and expresses his dismay about the changes occurred in industry’s business model over the years and how the current plight is not profitable to the producers, in one of the open discussions held for a Youtube channel with the producer, recently.
He says, “Consider some films with top stars with a budget of 100 crore. Is it profitable in today’s date? No, I am seated for an open discussion, let me tell you frankly. Take Mersal for example, the film was a mega hit for all the distributors. Only those who bought the film and those who worked on the film made money. But producer (Thenandal Studios Limited) saw the loss.”
As the discussion took a turn towards what reasons were the producers inferring losses from, the producer promptly used an example of Mersal and blamed Atlee’s exuberant production costs, directly. He says, “Why was Mersal a loss? It was Atlee’s mistake. The reason why I am bringing about this is because the public and the next artiste who gives him his call-sheet should too know. The production has all the details of how much he spent, what all he did without planning and how much he wasted. Why did he spend so much for Mersal? Was the film worth the cast?”
Looks like the producer pinned the loss over Atlee alone. Here’s what he says, “A producer cannot go and talk about these issues to a star. Especially, with a mass actor like Vijay. If I do so, then misunderstandings and the call-sheet problems might arise. There were many attempts to convince Atlee but he didn’t budge. How can a bill of Rs 4.5 crore for an outdoor-shoot be justified? I am saying all these to bring awareness to my fellow distributors, technicians and artistes. No producer should give films and no artiste should give dates to Atlee. He should be punished that way.”
T Siva also expressed his exasperation over unreasonable remuneration of Atlee for Mersal. “I have heard that Mersal has suffered a loss of Rs 60 crore. All the issues are over. The actor got his money. The director who received Rs 3 crore in the last film has now got Rs 13 crore. Generally, if a director gets Rs 3 crore, he should get Rs 5 crore in the next film. How did he get Rs 13 crore? There should be some reason for the expenses spent on a film.”
As the allegations over director Atlee raised and when producer Suresh Kamatchi and actor-director Praveen Gandhi too spoke about Mersal’s loss, producer Dhananjayan slammed everyone with his tweet, “Shocked to read such exaggerated statements that #Mersal incurred huge loss. Looks like a motivated campaign. When the Producer is not talking about it, how come others are quoting such figures? On what basis? My calculation is it’s a profitable film. Truth may be out soon (sic).”
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