The box office debacle of ace south Indian direct Mani Ratnam’s latest release Kadal has landed him in trouble. The distributors of the movie, who bought the rights at hefty rates, have suffered huge losses and want the director to compensate them.
Kadal, a love story set in the backdrop of the sea and lives of fisherfolk, was among the biggest flops of the director. With distributors marching to his house asking for their money, the police has now given protection to the director.
Mani Ratnam will have to help directors recoup losses. YouTube screengrab
According to Times of India, one of the distributors, who bought the film at Rs 14 crore for a particular area could collect only Rs 2.5 crore. The distributors claimed that they could have absorbed up to 30 percent of the losses, but not this much.
With this box office disaster, Mani will have to either pay back or adjust it against a future film that he would need to make soonest. And it needs to be a hit too.
Even as Tamil film makers get more ambitious with the canvas and scale of their films, the impact of their possible box office failures are worse than ever before. In the past, even superstar Rajinikanth had to dish out massive amounts of money to compensate the distributors when his Baba and Kuselan failed at the box office.
