The industry came to a standstill with a ban on releasing new films and shooting new ones.
Filmmaker J Sathish Kumar of JSK Film Corporation in a tweet on Tuesday slammed the Tamil Film Producers’ Council (TFPC) for allowing the shooting of actor Vijay’s upcoming film, tentatively called Thalapathy 62, in Chennai. “Actor #Vijay ‘s shooting is happening now at Victoria Hall. Where is our unity? How can our council give spl permission? I strongly oppose this decision. Don’t split up,” he alleged.
For the uninitiated, the entire Tamil film industry have been on a total and complete shutdown since March 16 as part of the producers’ council’s ongoing standoff with the digital distribution companies. The industry came to a standstill with a ban on releasing new films and shooting new ones.
Following Sathish’s disapproval, filmmaker and TFPC secretary Durairaj issued a statement explaining as to why Thalapathy 62 was allowed to continue filming. Durairaj said the association had decided to ban the shooting of Tamil films in Chennai from March 16. And the production of films happening outside the city and state would be stopped from March 23. However, they also had decided to make some exceptions to the films that were close to completing a shooting schedule or set work, in order to prevent producers from suffering a financial loss.
Actor #Vijay ‘s shooting is happening now at Victoria Hall. Where is our unity? How can our council give spl permission? I strongly oppose this decision. Don’t split up.
— J Satish Kumar (@JSKfilmcorp) March 20, 2018
“We had received four letters from different producers seeking an extension to stop the production, and Sun Pictures (producers of Thalapathy 62) was one of them. After all the film shootings were stopped in Chennai on March 16, we considered the requests we had received,” he noted.
He clarified that the producers’ council has given permission to three other films along with Thalapathy 62. He added that Naadodigal 2 has been allowed to continue shooting in Madurai until March 24, 18th Cross Pictures was allowed to complete its set work in Chennai’s ECR and Anto Joseph’s request for a one-day extension to shoot Kannum Kannum Kollai Adithal in Delhi was also approved.
“Stunt masters from Hyderabad have come to Chennai to work on the project of Sun Pictures. About 30 percent of stunt crew have also come from Hyderabad for this project. And the schedule is nearing completion. After much consideration in the last four days, we decided to permit the filmmakers to shoot,” said Durairaj, stressing that the association was not making arbitrary decisions.
Stunt choreographers Ram and Laxman and their team on Tuesday began filming a major action sequence for Thalapathy 62 on a set built at Victoria Hall in Chennai. The film is helmed by AR Murugadoss.