Kabir Singh director opts out of Telugu version of Lust Stories

Sandeep Reddy Vanga, director of Kabir Singh (2019), the year's second biggest blockbuster in Hindi, has confirmed opting out of Netflix’s Telugu version of Lust Stories. Sandeep Reddy said he was uncomfortable with the core theme of the anthology, lust.

Talking to the Deccan Chronicle newspaper, Sandeep Reddy, whose Kabir Singh and its Telugu original Arjun Reddy (2017) have been widely criticized for the toxic masculinity on show, said: “Initially they said it’s about honour killings, but later they said it is about lust. I told them I am not comfortable with lust.”

However, the filmmaker confirmed that he would soon helm a web-series. “I am planning to do a web-series in the next four or five years, based on some real-life incidents. It’s about a group of friends and I know it can’t be a film because the censors would not give us clearance for it.”

On the career front, Sandeep Reddy has a bilingual project with T-Series in the offing. He also has a Telugu film with producer Sunil Narang of Asian Cinemas in the pipeline.

Lust Stories (2018), featuring Kabir Singh heroine Kiara Advani, Radhika Apte and Manisha Koirala, was released as a Netflix original. The anthology film featuring four short-film segments centred on the theme of lust was directed by Karan Johar, Anurag Kashyap, Zoya Akhtar and Dibakar Banerjee.

The three other segments of the anthology film in Telugu are being directed by Sankalp Reddy, BV Nandini Reddy and Tharun Bhascker.

It was recently confirmed that Amala Paul plays the title role in the short directed by BV Nandini Reddy. Amala recently revealed that she had completed shooting her portion. Her segment also stars Jagapathi Babu and Ashwin Kakumanu.

Meanwhile, Netflix is foraying into the Tamil industry with an anthology-based web-series. This web-series will also have four segments which have been directed by Vignesh Shivn, Vetrimaaran, Gautham Menon and Sudha Kongara.

The theme for the Tamil version is honour killing. In the segment directed by Vignesh Shivn, Anjali and Kalki Koechlin played the lead roles. Information about the cast and crew of the other segments is not yet available.