Hey guys and welcome to the next installment of Blog under Cinema section and in this blog, we are gonna see about the controversies and problems that a Tamil Film faced during the time period of 2016.
Mersal is a tamil film which was written and directed by Atlee, which was his second consecutive collaboration with Thalapathy Vijay. It features Nithya Menen, Kajal Aggarwal, Samantha, Kovai Sarala, Vadivelu, and others. Here are some problems listed out :
1. The Madras High Court issued an interim ban against the Thenandal Studio Limited for using the title Mersal. In a lawsuit filed by A. Rajendran of AR Film Factory, it stated that Rajendran had registered the title Mersalayitten at the Tamil Film Producers Council in 2014 & claimed the similarities over the film's title may affect the prospects of his film. Following the restrictions by court, the team decided to change the title as Aalaporaan Thamizhan but the producers decided to stick to the original title. On 6 October 2017, the high court dismissed the plea & the team decided to retain its title.
2. On 12 October 2017, the Animal Welfare Board of India (AWBI) denied the team's approval for No objection certification (NOC), for using of few animals without their permission. This resulted in the denial of censorship from the CBFC. The officials from the CBFC said that the certain animals used during the film's production were real animals & not with the use of CG as a result, the team had approached AWBI for granting NOC. But the approval was rejected following the production team's failure to furnish the necessary documents. 2 of the scenes under question were edited, so as to get approval from AWBI. On 16 October, the AWBI granted NOC for the film, citing that the necessary documents were submitted & also received censor certificate.
3. Upon release, BJP the political party of India, & the AIADMK had raised objections to the scenes in which played by Vijay, criticises the GST & also a scene in which a character ridicules Digital India, an initiative promoted by the BJP. The party demanded that those scenes should be cut from the film for future viewership. Thamilisai Soundararajan & H. Raja were among the few members who criticised the film's notions while, H. Raja posted a controversial tweet mentioning Vijay's religion & posting the actor's voter ID card, in response to the criticism against Vijay over running a "hatred campaign" against BJP.
4. Several medical associations such as the Tamil Nadu Government Doctors' Association, condemned the film for the alleged cynical portrayal of doctors working in government-operated hospitals. Doctors working with the Indian Medical Association planned to boycott the film & shared links of the film on pirated websites online, in the hope that it would cause monetary losses to the makers of the film.
5. In November 2018, the Canada-based magician Raman Sharma, who worked in the project accused Thenandal Studios of non-payment of dues and slammed the company for their unprofessional behaviour. In August, Sharma's team sent a legal notice to the makers, demanding the rest of his payment under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016.
6. Though the film was touted to have an approximate collection of 250cr. The production house had to file for bankruptcy due to the high production costs involved. The social media propaganda loss of this film amounts to an approximate ₹60cr with references citing Atlee exceeding the production budget. However, G. Dhananjayan opined that the film was considered profitable to all distributors across Tamil Nadu.
7. Due to the financial issues production led the makers to shelve their upcoming projects notably the company's big-budget film Sangamithra, Jagame Thandhiram which later made under Y Not Studios. Furthermore, their completed project Iravaakaalam remained unreleased.