V Lakshmi (BOMBAY TIMES; February 2, 2014)

Bollywood director Nikhil Advani and actress Shruti Haasan recently voiced their objection to the release of their D-Day in Tamil as Dawood. While Nikhil levelled allegations against the film’s co-producers, the Rangacharis — Arun and Vivek — for selling the rights of the film without his knowledge, Shruti issued a press statement saying she was dissociating herself from the film’s Tamil version as it was being made without her consent, which she said was a “clear breach of contract”.

However, the spokesperson of the Rangacharis’ production house tells us that as soon as the change in the title was brought to their notice by the director, they addressed the issue with the distributors.

 “D-Day was co-produced by us and Nikhil Advani’s production house; while we funded the project, the creative of the film was Nikhil’s prerogative. Even the contracts that were signed by the actors were with his company. The distributors for the film were finalised in concurrence with Nikhil and the same was shared with him and his company via e-mail in 2013. The distributors were given the Hindi, Tamil and Telugu India rights in consultation with them. Nikhil brought to our notice the change in title and inappropriate posters on January 29, and we immediately addressed the issue. We got in touch with the distributors through the right channels and got it rectified. But, we were shocked to see defamatory articles in the press the next day. Factually, whatever has been said is wrong because the very next day after Nikhil spoke to us, the title was changed to D-Day and the earlier posters were recalled. According to the standard distribution process, we gave the Hindi creatives to the distributors in the faith that those would be used. The distributors don’t show us the posters before they publicise the film. And as far as the consultation with actors goes, Nikhil and his company have to inform us as they were the ones who had signed the contracts,” he says.

“Nikhil knew that steps had been taken on Wednesday, the day he spoke to us, and he even agreed to what was being done. The title was changed and Hindi posters were used from the next day. He sent an advisory notice, drafted by a legal team, accusing us of a few things. He was aware of the commercial understanding, and I think he was trying to save face with Shruti,” says Vivek, who’s now consulting his legal team for further action. Adds Vivek, “Nikhil and his team went through every contract we drew up and now, he's saying he is unaware of them and putting the blame on us. We will give them an appropriate answer.” 

According to him, the film might release in Tamil as D-Day on February 7.