Vijay’s father SA Chandrasekhar unhappy with Beast, slams filmmaker Nelson Dilipkumar: ‘Where is screenplay?’

“I enjoyed Arabic Kuthu like how a die-hard fan would. But, this is a film that was made solely relying on Vijay’s stardom. Young filmmakers deliver an excellent first film in terms of content, technology and making. They also somehow achieve good results with the second film. When they begin to get the projects of big superstars, these young filmmakers begin to think, ‘now that we have dates of these heroes, we can make movies whichever way we want.’ They think he (the star) already has a huge fan following and his film will run successfully in theatres, so no need for a screenplay and things like that. And they make a movie with a few songs and fights,” Chandrasekhar told Thanthi TV recently.

Chandrasekhar accused Nelson of failing to do his homework on the subject of cross-border terrorism, which forms the core narrative of Beast.

“The magic is there in the screenplay. You can’t lightly handle a very heavy subject, which is about international terrorist organisations. The director has to take time and study it. He should understand what it means to be a RAW agent? Or what is the RAW department? What is the military?” he added.

He advised that a director should not go to shoot because the hero is available. Instead, a director should wait till the script is ready. “I didn’t see a screenplay in that film. I knew that the film would become a hit. There was never a doubt about it. I saw (the work of) a music director, a fight master, a dance master, an editor and a hero,” he said, suggesting that he didn’t see Nelson’s work as a director.

Beast was released last week in theatres to a rousing response from the audience. The film, however, received poor reviews. That didn’t stop it from earning Rs 200 crore at the worldwide box office within five days of its release.