Friday, December 11, 2020

A saffron touch to Kamal Haasan's Indian 2 producer

 


Lyca Movies  through Mahaveer Jain,  Modi’s staunch supporter in Bollywood has signed a 5 film deal with Karan  Johar to make Hindi films. Lyca is currently the producer of Kamal Haasan film Indian 2, which is stuck for many reasons.  It is co- producer of Mani Ratnam’s  Ponniyin Selvan and has a Trisha starrer Raangi with story by A R Murugadoss ( a single was released) and a Yogi Babu film Panni kutty . Karan Johar was named as one of the few who were said to be part of a lobby in Bollywood that dictated terms and favored  a few. This lobby was said to be the reason for the suicide of actor Sushanth, a matter that is under investigation by several agencies.

The inkling of a deal between Lyca and Mahaveer Jain came when the latter decided to distribute the Tamil dubbed version of Mann Bairagi , a film on the life of Modi, produced by the latter. It has been titled Karmayogi. Mahaveer Jain came to spotlight when he was in the news last year  for arranging several meetings with A- listers of B’Town and PM Modi. Producer Mahaveer Jain,  along with filmmaker Karan Johar, initiated the move for a delegation of young Bollywood talent to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The delegation included actors Ranbir Kapoor, Ranveer Singh, Varun Dhawan, Alia Bhatt, Sidharth Malhotra, Vicky Kaushal, Ayushmann Khurrana, Bhumi Pednekar, Rajkummar Rao, producers Ekta Kapoor, Karan Johar and Mahaveer Jain with  directors Ashwini Iyer Tiwari and Rohit Shetty. Last year in October in the Capital , Aamir Khan, Sidddhart Roy Kapur,Anand L Rai and Ritesh Sidhwani took part in the PM  meet.
Lyca  had decided to move towards Bollywood and appointed Ashish Singh as CEO . Singh was said to have taken up the several production issues between Lyca and Kamal Haasan in his previous visit. Sabash  Naidu ,a film that Kamal’s production house that produced for Lyca, has not been handed over to them even after a gap of 2 years. After a first schedule and an accident on the sets that caused some deaths of workers, Indian 2 shooting has not progressed. Kamal has moved on to a new project directed by Lokesh and produced by him. Shankar who directs Indian 2 is said to have given an ultimatum to Lyca and is soon to move to helm another project, if things are not sorted out soon.   An audit team from UK that looked into the accounts of the South India operations of Lyca ,found massive siphoning  of funds .

 Lyca had hits with Tamil blockbusters Darbaar, Kaala. Enthiran, Enthiran 2.0 ( all Rajinikanth starrer), Kaathi ( Vijay) , Naanum Rowdy Thaan and Kolamaavu kokila ( Nayanthara) , Vetrimaaran directed Visaranaai and Vada Chennai ( Dhanush) and Mani Ratnam’s Chekka Chevatha Vaanum.

The saffron touch to Lyca through Mahaveer Jain would make strange bedfellows with Kamal Haasan who  plays a crusader in the sequel to Indian. Lyca’s producer’s background had earlier created an embarrassment to Rajinikanth. Subaskaran , the producer is said to be a Sri Lankan and relative of PM Rajapaksa ( seen as murderer of Tamils in the island by many radical groups). Rajanikanth who was to inaugurate a housing settlement colony for war ravaged displaced Lankan Tamils in Jaffna had to back off as many objected to it saying that it was built by funds from Subaskaran and it was an eye wash to show that everything was normal between Tamils and Sinhalese. Karan Johar had been in a spot after the nepotism charge cropped up. His tie-up with Fox dried up after it was bought by Disney ,who was not interested in film production. The tie-up will mutually benefit Johar and Lyca.

 

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