Ace director Puri Jagannadh, best known for hit films like Pokiri and Businessman , both starring actor Mahesh Babu and Itlu Sravani Subramanyam and Idiot with actor Ravi Teja as hero, found himself embroiled in a controversy over his film Loafer that flopped, ending up in almost 50 per cent losses to the distributors.
On Monday, at a meeting convened by Telugu Film Distributors Council president Sudhakar Reddy (father of actor Nitin), distributors from across the two Telugu States of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, who bought the screening rights for Loafer , cried hoarse about how they were being insulted by Mr. Puri Jagannadh. The film starring Varun Tej and Disha Patani, a newcomer, bombed at the box office in December last and was produced by C. Kalyan.
Among those present were Mutyala Ramdas (East Godavari), a producer himself, Abhishek (Hyderabad-Nizam) and Sudheer (Telangana-Nizam), against all of whom the director is said to have lodged complaints with the Jubilee Hills police station, alleging attacks, extortion and other forms of harassment.
Other distributors who attended the meeting included secretaries in the Council ‘Asian’ Sunil and V. Veera Naidu, apart from Sakthi Pictures Ramesh (Vijayawada) and Laxmikanth Reddy of the Ceded districts (Rayalaseema). They all echoed how insulted they were feeling and how the director was not even making himself available for a meeting.
“About two and a half months ago, I managed to meet Mr. Puri Jagannadh and he promised to talk to the producer Mr. Kalyan about our problems and see that we were compensated in some way or the other. But it remained a promise that never saw the light of the day and we have not heard anything from the director,” Mr. Ramdas said. Speaking to mediapersons, the distributors recalled how prominent persons in the industry including actors Rajnikanth (for the film Baba ), N.T. Rama Rao ( Rabhasa ), Mahesh Babu ( No. 1 ) and Pawan Kalyan ( Johnny ) and directors Srinu Vytla ( Aagadu ) and V.V. Vinayak ( Alludu Seenu ) compensated distributors for losses, one way or the other.
It is not always that the compensation is by way of cash, but in other forms like distribution rights for another film, or an actor/director agreeing to do another film without remuneration upfront. The three distributors against whom Mr. Puri Jagannadh is said to have lodged police complaints are confused as to why the director went to the police. “We did not even foul mouth him at any point of time, but only explained our financial problems,” they said, summing up.
They fault the director for blowing up the row over losses sustained by the film ‘Loafer’
