The latest controversy to explode in Tamil cinema is the war of words between critically acclaimed director Karthik Subbaraj and the producer of his latest movie Iraivi, Gnanavel Raja.
Producer Gnanavel Raja, who distributed the film is peeved with Subbaraj, and in a Whatsapp audio message, regretted being associated with the film. He said that Karthik doesn't know the pain of becoming a director as he's never worked as an assistant director to anyone. He also revealed that Karthik overshot the budget and this resulted in some misunderstanding with the producer C.V Kumar.
It is also being said that the producers’ council has decided to take action against Subbaraj for portraying the producer in poor light.
But this is the just the tip of the iceberg. And the present controversy has its roots in his previous movie, Jigarthanda.
After the release of Jiganthanda, Karthik Subbaraj had filed a complaint with the Directors' Union against the film’s producer Kathiresan, for selling the Hindi remake rights of the movie. According to sources, Karthik Subburaj filed a case in Madras High Court also because the producer reportedly assured him 40 per cent of the revenue generated through selling the Hindi language remake rights, but later allegedly tried to seal the deal without Karthik's knowledge. The court then issued a stay on selling the remake rights of the movie.
Even before the misunderstanding between them, Kathiresan and Karthik were not on good terms due to differences over the production of Jigarthanda.
This had already given Karthik a bad reputation among producers, according to sources in the industry.
Further, during the shooting of Iraivi, apparently there were several arguments between Karthik and CV Kumar, another producer of the movie, over resources like use of jimmy-jib cameras for several days.
All of these events have now led to the current face-off between Karthik and the producers.
However, several insiders also believe that both the producers and directors could be playing up this controversy and blowing it up to generate free publicity for the movie.
(With inputs from Digital Native)