‘Gully Boy’ actor Ranveer Singh recently took to social media and announced his collaboration with Tamil director Shankar Shanmugham for his next film ‘Anniyan’ (Aparichitudu in Telugu). The film is a Hindi adaptation of the Tamil film.
However, just a day after the official announcement by the team, the producer of the original film Aascar Ravichandran released a statement claiming that the remake is illegal. He further said that he holds all the rights of the film and that Shankar hasn’t taken his permission to undertake the direction of the Hindi remake.
#Anniyan Tamil Producer #AascarRavichandran asks Dir #Shankar to stop the Hindi remake as he has the rights.. pic.twitter.com/6h3WOGllH2
— Ramesh Bala (@rameshlaus) April 15, 2021
Towards the end of his open letter, Ravichandran further reminded the director that it was because of him that he was able to mend his dented image and regain the ‘lost ground’. Ravichandran also advised him to immediately stop further production of the film.
Here’s the strongly-worded letter penned by him.
As soon as Ravichandran made such claims, the director responded and denied all the allegations. Shankar has also released an official statement, reported Deccan Chronicle.
In his statement, he wrote that everyone is aware the script and storyline belong exclusively to him and that the movie was released with the tag: Story, Screenplay, and Direction by Shankar, reported The New Indian Express.
“I have not assigned in writing any script or screenplay to any person, and continue to retain the right to exploit the script in any manner I deem fit. In fact, you/your entity does not have the right to remake or make any derivative rights for Anniyan, as the said rights have not been granted to you in writing,” he wrote.
He further added that Ravichandran is needlessly “trying to unjustly enrich” himself in his future endeavors which have no correlation to him.
“Needless to state, I can only hope good sense will prevail upon you after this clarification and you will stop agitating such baseless claims. This reply is issued without prejudice, and to clarify the actual situation of me as a director and writer being subject to such avaricious and illegal claims to needlessly attempt to jeopardise my future projects,” wrote Shankar.
While people have been divided over this conflict of interest, we’ll have to wait to see where this ends.