Akshaye Khanna halted shoot for six months, got me removed from Section 375, claims Manish Gupta

Manish Gupta mentioned he warned Akshaye Khanna that he would drag him to court, and even sent two legal notices to producer Kumar Mangat.

Section 375 writer Manish Gupta has launched an attack at actor Akshaye Khanna saying he was unethical and unreasonable behaviour. He claimed that he wanted to fully control the film and wanted everything done his way.

Akshaye Khanna was last seen in Dhurandhar.

Manish attacks Akshaye Khanna

In an interview with Bollywood Hungama, Manish said, “In 2017, Akshaye signed my film Section 375 with me as director-writer and Kumar Mangat as producer. His fee was fixed at ₹2 crore. He took an advance of ₹21 lakhs, and he signed a contract with us. But suddenly, he gave away the dates he’d committed to us to another movie, The Accidental Prime Minister, and he flew off to London to shoot that movie, leaving me and my crew waiting idle for six months."

“Then, after finishing that movie, Akshaye came back and started demanding ₹3.25 crores, instead of the ₹2 crores signed by him in the contract. He thus breached his contract. Akshaye’s unreasonable demands did not end here. He wanted to fully control the film and wanted everything done his way. But I am not the sort of director who gives in to the whims of any actor. I stood up to Akshaye’s unreasonable behaviour. But sadly, in Bollywood, most directors bend to every wish of the actor," he added.

Manish claimed that Akshaye “started pestering the producer Kumar Mangat to remove me as the director of the film and give the entire control of the film to him (Akshaye) instead. He said that Kumar Mangat made him a scapegoat and removed him as the director while seizing his fully-written bound script and the hard drive "containing my three years of hard work on the pre-production."

Manish mentioned he warned Akshaye that he would drag him to court, and even sent two legal notices to producer Kumar Mangat. He claimed that Kumar Mangat did an out-of-court settlement with me. He mentioned that now producer Kumar Mangat is facing the brunt of Akshaye’s “unethical behaviour in the Ajay Devgn starrer film Drishyam 3”.

Akshaye’s recent project

Meanwhile, Akshaye has been enjoying a fresh wave of acclaim for his chilling turn as the ruthless Rehman Dakait in Aditya Dhar’s Dhurandhar. Written, directed and co-produced by Aditya Dhar, Dhurandhar stars Ranveer Singh, Akshaye Khanna, R Madhavan, Arjun Rampal, Sanjay Dutt, Sara Arjun and Rakesh Bedi. The film tells the story of how Jaskirat Singh Rangi, aka Hamza Ali Mazari, played by Ranveer, infiltrates Rehman Dakait’s gang to relay sensitive information to India. Dhurandhar has been seeing a stellar run at the box office. The film was released on December 5. It’s sequel is slated to be released later this year.