By Sreekanth A Nair
The producers of Tamil movie ‘Puli’ starring Vijay ridiculed the claim of actress Sridevi that they owe her Rs. 50 Lakh. They also reverted the attack saying that if going by actual accounts, Sreedevi has to pay back Rs. 20 Lakh.
Earlier Sridevi had filed a complaint with Mumbai Producers Council claiming that the producers of the film ‘Puli’ owed her Rs 50 lakh. In the wake of her complaint, the producers ShibuThameens and PT Selvakumar came out with the statement clarifying their part.
“We were paying her as per the agreement she had signed at the beginning of the film. However, in the final stages of production, Sridevi’s husband Boney Kapoor asked us to pay her extra as we were planning to release the film in other languages too.â€
The producers said that Sridevi’s husband threatened that she would come to the shoot only if the extra cash of is paid.
The producers also claimed, “After much deliberation, we decided to pay her 20 percent of the film’s Hindi satellite rights, which was Rs 55 lakhs, and Rs 15 lakhs for the dubbed Telugu version.”
“We had hired three costume designers for Puli, but Sridevi insisted that we sign Manish Malhotra, and we paid him Rs 50 lakhs. She also convinced us to pay Rs 8 lakhs for the marketing designer for the film’s Hindi version,†said the producers.
They criticized Bony Kapoor for his false claims that Sridevi had a good market in Hindi. Believing this, they decided to release the film in Hindi, which was a failure.
Even after spending crore of rupees for her, Sreedevi didn’t even come for the audio launch of the film, the producers said.
Sridevi played the role of the evil queen in the film, starring Vijay, Shruti Hassan, and HansikaMotwani.