Fierce battle scenes were planned for the warrior queen biopic Manikarnika: The Queen Of Jhansi.
But a war is now erupting outside the sets as actor Kangana Ranaut, who plays the title role, takes charge as its new director and accuses her co-star Sonu Sood of bigotry and gender discrimination. It’s a convoluted story that would rival a Bollywood potboiler, but Gulf News tabloid! has broken it down for you. We start with the basics. Try to keep up.
What’s Manikarnika: The Queen Of Jhansi about?
It’s a Bollywood biopic on the life of Rani Laxmibai of Jhansi, an Indian warrior queen played by Kangana Ranaut. It will focus on Queen Jhansi’s war against the British East Indian company during the Indian rebellion of 1857.
The filming began in summer of 2017 and was slated to release in April this year. But, its inception has been riddled with controversies including a change in director. Now, the biopic is set to release on January 24, 2019 in the UAE.
Why is Manikarnika in the news now?
It is daggers drawn between Bollywood actors Kangana Ranaut and Sonu Sood, who were a part of the original cast of Manikarnika.
The exit of Sood — after he shot for more than 45 days in Rajasthan for his role of Sadashiv Rao as sly opponent of Rani Laxmibai in the epic — has resulted in a volley of accusations.
Trouble began when its original director Krish Jagarlamudi finished filming large portions and moved on to his next project. Word on the street is that Ranaut, who’s famously overenthusiastic and has a tendency to overstep in other creative domains such as directing and writing (remember the Simran debacle where its original writer Apurva Asrani accused her of hijacking credits), demanded major changes to the portions filmed by director Krish.
Rumour has it that her interference led to his departure and he vowed not to return. Therefore, the original team led by Krish was dismantled (both its original director of photography and writer KV Vijayendra Prasad have allegedly washed their hands off the project) with Ranaut taking on the reins as director.
Such a drastic change in order also meant that Ranaut had the freedom to alter the script and roles of other actors. She was keen to re-shoot several portions of the film.
Ranaut demanded new dates from Sood, who was in the midst of filming another action film Simmba with Ranveer Singh, so that the epic would match her vision.
Ranaut accused Sood of not obliging and claimed that he wasn’t ready to take directions from a female director, now that she’s in charge. Sood has been replaced by a relatively unknown actor Zeeshahn Ayub.
When Gulf News tabloid! tracked down Sood, he denied Ranaut’s claim of being bigoted and crippled by gender prejudices.
“I just feel sad that she’s making such ridiculous claims about me not wanting to work with a woman director. I have worked with Farah Khan for Happy New Year before. So, where does this woman card come from? Gender is never an issue with me when it comes to work,” said Sood in an interview with Gulf News tabloid!.
Sood, whose war drama Paltan is out in the UAE this week, also felt disappointed that the time he kept aside for this film had all gone to waste.
“As a creative person, it’s the worst thing that can happen to an actor. I wasted so many days for this project,” said Sood.
Ranaut and her team did not respond to a comment at the time of printing.
Is it the first time that Manikarnika has courted controversy?
No, it isn’t the first time that this film has come under fire. In February last year, the film came under attack from a Brahmin outfit in Rajasthan called the Sarv Brahmin Mahasabha. The fringe group claimed that the movie has an “indecent portrayal” of Rani Laxmibai, who was a Brahmin. It was feared that Ranaut’s historic epic would face issues such as the one that Padmaavat endured. But Ranaut and director Krish, at that time, denied the allegations vehemently and put a lid on it.
Another controversy erupted when Indian National Award-winning filmmaker Ketan Mehta sent a legal notice to actress Ranaut accusing her of trying to hijack his project Rani of Jhansi — The Warrior Queen. Mehta claimed that he approached Ranaut to play the role of Rani Laxmibai in June 2105 and had shared his research material with the actress. Due to creative differences, they decided not to pursue his idea as Mehta wanted to make it an international English-feature film. They parted ways, but Ranaut’s announcement to be a part of Manikarnika, a film that resembled his idea, rattled him. It’s believed that Ranaut stole his original idea and developed it.
Has the industry reacted to this controversy?
The writer of Simran, Apurva Asrani, took to Twitter on Saturday with this message: “A star hijacking a film and running down the hard work of crew member/s is the worst form of hara-kiri there is. When affected filmmakers cannot control this and instead put on a facade of a ‘dignified silence’, they allow a monstrous ego to go on a rampage and eventually kill the film.”
Meanwhile, Manikarnika producer Kamal Jain claims that Ranaut’s takeover wasn’t hostile.
“After the last schedule was over, we saw the line-up of the film. On seeing it, we decided that apart from the patchwork, we also needed a few additional scenes. Once the scenes were written, we approached Kangana for additional dates. But Krish had moved on to his next project by then. Given how driven and creatively involved Kangana has been on this project since its inception, we realised she would be the best person to take over the mantle,” Jain was quoted as saying.
