Manikarnika: The Queen of Jhansi (2019) co-producer Kamal Jain has hit out at director Krish for criticizing lead actress and co-director Kangana Ranaut over matters related to the credits.
Jain, the founder of Kairos Kontent which is one of the producers of Manikarnika, issued a statement, saying: "Its very sad how Krish is trying to claim credit for what he doesn’t deserve, it was mine and studio’s collective decision to give credits the way they are, to attack Kangana who stood by the film from beginning to end is very sad, whatever she did she could have not done without production and creative team’s consent." The other producers are Zee Studios and Nishant Pitti.
In an interview with a news agency, Krish had claimed that more than 70% of the released film is shot by him. He finally opened up on what went wrong on the sets of the Rani Laxmibai epic saga, leading to a slanging match between Ranaut's sister Rangoli Chandel and Krish on social media. Both made public screenshots of messages exchanged with various people associated with the film to prove their respective sides.
"You know, every time I am asked this, my heart sinks to the ground. Let me say this outright. I did not leave the film incomplete. I left it when it was almost complete. I shot Manikarnika for 109 days whereas I completed NTR biopic in half that time. Then we did the dubbing post-production, everything for Manikarnika. Only then did I move to my other commitment (the NTR biopic). For me the film was complete. Everyone had dubbed except Kangana," Krish had told IANS in the interview.
Jain felt that Krish’s action was motivated with the intention to harm the film, and he dared him to go the legal way to prove his claims.
“Rather than making it a media trial specifically after huge critical claim [sic] and box office success is a clear attempt to harm our film, why doesn’t he go the legal way if he is speaking the truth and prove his claims, we tried to handle this matter on every level, nothing was done without informing him, it's sad he chose to create this controversy at the stage [sic],” stated Jain.
Efforts to reach out to Krish to seek a reaction on Jain’s comment didn’t elicit any response.