Kangana Ranaut’s next, Simran, directed by Hansal Mehta has invited a controversy with just the release of its poster. The teaser of the film was released a few days back along with the poster, which featured the name of Kangana Ranaut as ‘additional story and dialogue writer’ of the film. And this is precisely what didn’t go down well with the writer of the film, Apurva Asrani. The man is a national award-winning filmmaker, film editor, and screenplay writer. Apurva has written the story, screenplay, and dialogue for Mehta’s critically acclaimed last film, Aligarh.
In his recent Facebook post, the writer has expressed how he feels ditched by both Kanagna Ranaut and Hansal Mehta for not giving him his due credit for writing Simran. In fact, when the poster of the film was released, he also took to Twitter and mentioned he has no issues with Kangana’s name being featured above him in the poster. The problem, however, is the fact that the actress has been dissing his work and claiming that she had developed the entire screenplay from one-line narration and made a fun film out of a dark gritty narrative.
Apurva has also condemned how Kangana has been allegedly giving interviews to media and telling people that she has written the screenplay along with Mehta. The writer’s post says:
“While it is demeaning for any writers name to be pushed after an additional writing credit, I want to bring to your attention that it’s not the ‘credits’ that irk me so much. There is something bigger that I notice, something that I cannot make sense of.
Ms Ranaut has been claiming in several interviews that Hansal Mehta, the director of Simran, approached her with just a one line screenplay of the film. She says that they story was dark & gritty thriller at that stage and that she herself developed it into a light, fun film.
This completely discredits me and my efforts, and I have to call out this lie at the cost of so many of her fans turning against me. Those that know me will know that I have always strived for the truth, and that is more important to me than a hit film.”
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Kangana Ranaut in a poster of Simran
Apurva, who was reportedly sacked as the editor of Simran found support in producer Goldie Behl who objected to Kangana’s name as the additional ‘story’ writer indirectly and said: “Nice feel @Apurvasrani have heard of additional dialogues but can’t understand ‘additional story’ a story is a story how can you have additional.”
Apurva replied to the tweet by saying: “Thanks @GOLDIEBEHL. I think @mehtahansal is the best person to answer that question.”
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Not just objecting to Kangana’s credit of being the ‘additional story writer’, Apurva has also mentioned how Hansal Mehta requested him to allow Kangana to take the co-writer credit since she was soon turning director. However, even though he refused to give in the credit Kangana asked for, he agreed on having the actress the credit of being the additional writer. Here’s how he has explained it in his post:
At no stage did I see this new narrative of theirs coming. It was only the day after I finished the first cut of the film that Hansal called me to meet. He informed me nervously that Kangana is turning director and therefore has demanded a co writer credit.I naturally had a shit fit and feeling shocked and betrayed, I refused to give in.
For 2 months, he and his co producer Shailesh tried to arm twist me into giving her a co writer credit. The details of which I will reserve for the future.I finally gave into an additional writing credit, but only because they claimed their film would be stuck if I didn’t do so. But I refused to give her a co writer credit, and we signed a letter where they promised me the same.
Today not only do I see her credit before mine on the poster ( which I had decided not to fight), but I also saw Kangana on her ‘Facebook Live’ event yesterday claiming that she had written the film (with Hansal) from a one-line he gave her. She had already discredited my one line in her Mid Day Interview in April, saying it was a dark & gritty thriller till she wrote a new film.”
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Well, it will be too early to take sides, there can’t be any compromise on the talent with which one earns his livelihood from. Here’s Apurva’s entire post:
Your thoughts?
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