New Delhi: Mythri Movie Makers has once again landed in the soup. While still grappling with the Pushpa 2 stampede incident, the production house is now facing legal troubles over their upcoming film, Jai Hanuman.
Jai Hanuman, a sequel to the successful 2024 film HanuMan, stars Rishab Shetty.
High court advocate Mamidal Thirumal Rao has filed a case at the Nampally Criminal Court, accusing Shetty, along with director Prasanth Varma and the producers—Ravi Shankar and Naveen Yerneni—of offensively portraying Lord Hanuman.
Three days ago, Rao addressed the media to explain his objections. According to him, the teaser of Jai Hanuman, released on 30 October last year, depicts Hanuman with a “human face”, which he deemed disrespectful and a distortion of divine imagery.
“The teaser of Jai Hanuman was released in October by Mythri Movie Makers, which is represented by their producers Ravi Shankar and Naveen Yerneni, directed by Prasanth Varma and acted by Rishab Shetty, an award-winning actor. The poster shows Rishab as a mighty king with a muscular body. But his face is human. This means they have offensively depicted Lord Hanuman with a human face,” Rao said.
The advocate further cautioned that if Jai Hanuman is given a free way, the younger generation would never know that Lord Hanuman wasn’t a human.
“If we let this continue, the younger generation won’t know that Hanuman isn’t human. We will have to prove otherwise, even when it comes to other Gods like Ganesh and Varaha Swami when they make whatever they want to make money. We cannot let that happen,” he added.
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Mounting woes
This legal challenge adds to the mounting woes of Mythri Movie Makers.
The production house is still reeling from the tragic stampede that occurred during the premiere of Pushpa 2: The Rule.
The incident took place on 4 December last year at Sandhya Theatre in Hyderabad, during a visit by Allu Arjun, who plays the lead role in the film.
The stampede resulted in the death of a 35-year-old woman and left her young son critically injured.
Acting upon the complaint filed by the victim’s family, Allu Arjun, the theatre management, and a few security members were arrested. The actor was later granted bail by the Telangana High Court.
Now, the latest controversy around Jai Hanuman only exacerbates the challenges the production house is facing.
(Edited by Aamaan Alam Khan)