The shooting of the upcoming Chiranjeevi starrer Sye Raa Narasimha Reddy came to a standstill with a massive fire engulfing the sets worth Rs 3 crore. The team had erected a fort set on the farmland belonging to Chiranjeevi in Kokapet where the shooting was in progress. Reports say that the sets went ablaze due to an electric short circuit but no casualties have been reported. Sources in the know say that the shooting will have to be put on hold for two months for the set to be re-built. A few months ago, a similar fire accident happened on the sets of this film, which was a major setback for the Sye Raa team.
After the movie sets got gutted twice, rumours are now rife in Tollywood that the film's crew deliberately lit the fire to claim the insurance money amounting to a few crores. The movie is bankrolled by Chiranjeevi’s son and actor Ram Charan under a staggering budget of Rs 300 crore.
According to a report in the Deccan Chronicle, sources have said that the fire on Chiranjeevi’s set is definitely not an accident but is a deliberate attempt to claim the insurance money.
“Generally, filmmakers who insure their massive sets don’t like to dismantle it, so after the shooting is complete, they deliberately do something to make it look like an accident in order to claim the insurance money,” the report quotes the source as saying.
However, the film's PR has dismissed the claims as mere rumours. Vamsi Kaka, PR to Sye Raa, told TNM that certain local websites and newspapers have been spreading rumours and that nobody has contacted the film unit to verify if there is any truth to the rumours.
“These are just rumours to create controversies ahead of the film’s release. There is no truth to the allegations and it's all gossip propagated by certain news websites,” Kaka said.
Soon after the fire broke out on Friday, Ram Charan had tweeted saying that no one in the set was injured and the team was looking forward to complete the shooting of the last schedule of the movie.
Sye Raa has a bevy of stars from different film industries including Amitabh Bachchan who will be seen making a guest appearance as Gosayi Venkanna. Apparently, he plays Uyyalalwada Narasimha’s mentor in the film. The others in the star cast are Vijay Sethupathi, Nayanthara, Tamannaah, Jagapathi Babu, Kiccha Sudeep, Pragya Jaiswal and Brahmaji. R. Rathnavelu is the cameraman for this film, with A Sreekar Prasad editing it and Amit Trivedi composing the music. It is a trilingual that will be released in Tamil, Telugu and Hindi.
(With inputs from Digital Native)