Shankar, the maverick filmmaker from the South known for his big-screen fantasies has lately found himself in a bit of a legal jam. First, there was the producer of Shankar’s 2005 Telugu blockbuster Anniyan. Producer Aascar V Ravichandran claimed that the story and screenplay rights of Anniyan belonged to him and therefore Shankar was not within his rights to do the remake. It was recently that Shankar announced the Hindi remake of his hit film Anniyan with Ranveer Singh in the lead role.
Now comes an even bigger blow to Shankar’s epic plans with his long-delayed Indian 2 finding itself in a legal imbroglio. The producers Lyca Productions have now gone to court to forbid Shankar from directing any other film until he completes Indian 2. But will Indian 2 ever finish? The film’s leading man Kamal Haasan has been busy with his political aspirations which are prioritised far above his film career at the moment.
An informed source revealed, “Indian 2 has been troubled from the word go. It has been facing one glitch after another. Now the producers going to the court asking that the director be prevented from signing other films until he completes Indian 2 could have far-reaching repercussions for all directors into multi-projects.”
We await Shankar's response to this controversy. Earlier, via a letter, Shankar responded to Anniyan controversy saying "I am shocked to receive your (producer Aascar) mail dated 14.04.2021 stating that you own the storyline of the movie Anniyan. In this context, I submit that the movie was released in the year 2005 and everyone associated with the movie was aware that the script and storyline belong exclusively to me and in fact, the movie was released with the tag: Story, Screenplay and Direction by Shankar."
Image source: Instagram/shanmughamshankar