New Delhi : Akshaye Khanna is embroiled in controversy as Drishyam 3 producer, Kumar Mangat, has accused him of abruptly leaving the film days before shooting. He also claimed that Akshaye had taken an advance payment for the film before his exit. He mentioned how he backed Akshaye during Section 375 shoot when no one else wanted to. Now, Section 375’s writer, Manish Gupta, has opened up about what really happened.
Manish told Bollywood Hungama, “In 2017, Akshaye signed my film Section 375 with me as director-writer and Kumar Mangat as producer. His fee was fixed at Rs 2 crores. He took an advance of Rs 21 lakhs, and he signed a contract with us. But suddenly, he gave away the dates he’d committed to us to another movie, The Accidental Prime Minister, and he flew off to London to shoot that movie, leaving me and my crew waiting idle for six months!”
“Then, after finishing that movie, Akshaye came back and started demanding Rs 3.25 crores, instead of the Rs 2 crores signed by him in the contract. He thus breached his contract. Akshaye’s unreasonable demands did not end here. He wanted to fully control the film and wanted everything done his way. But I am not the sort of director who gives in to the whims of any actor. I stood up to Akshaye’s unreasonable behaviour. But sadly, in Bollywood, most directors bend to every wish of the actor,” he added.
Manish mentioned, “Since it was hurting Akshaye’s ego to take orders from an authoritarian director like me, he started pestering the producer Kumar Mangat to remove me as the director of the film and give the entire control of the film to him (Akshaye) instead. Producer Kumar Mangat, instead of disciplining the actor’s unreasonable behaviour, made me a scapegoat and removed me as the director while seizing my fully-written bound script and the hard drive containing my three years of hard work on the pre-production.”
“I warned Akshaye that I would drag him to court, and I sent two legal notices to producer Kumar Mangat. My lawyers, Naik Naik & Co., were filing a case at Bombay High Court against both of them, but Kumar Mangat promptly did an out-of-court settlement with me. Today, ironically, when producer Kumar Mangat is facing the brunt of Akshaye’s unethical behaviour in the Ajay Devgn starrer film Drishyam 3, Mangat has taken legal action against Akshaye,” he concluded.
