01 January,2025 10:10 AM IST | Mumbai | mid-day online correspondent
Naga Vamsi, Hansal Mehta and Sanjay Gupta
Telugu producer Naga Vamsi made some strong and triggering claims in a recent interview that has led to Bollywood filmmakers like Hansal Mehta, Siddharth Anand and Sanjay Gupta to respond. The Bollywood vs South cinema narrative is one that been discussed largely in film circles in the past few years and with Allu Arjun's 'Pushpa 2' breaking all previous film records at the box office has only re-ignited the conversations further. Producer Vamsi claimed that Mumbai must not have slept following Pushpa 2's collections in the country.
"I don't think whole Mumbai would've slept when Pushpa 2 grossed 80 crore on a single day on a Sunday," he said during a Galatta round table conversation of Indian producers. Boney Kapoor who was also part of the conversation added that the collections were made just in the Hindi dubbed language alone.
However, this statement did not sit well with Hindi filmmakers who responded to the claim on social media.
Director Hansal Mehta who saw the theatrical release of The Buckingham Murders last year said, "Chill dude whoever you are… I live in Mumbai. Been sleeping really well."
Mehta further wrote, "Since this person Mr Naga Vamsi was being so arrogant and now that I know who he is : His latest hit as a producer Lucky Bhaskar has borrowed liberally from the Scam series. Reason I brought this up is that I feel happy that stories travel and a film in another language suceeds in replicating what has worked for us. Everybody wins. Nobody is bigger than the other. That narrative is destructive. Arrogance is even worse.
To all those haters coming at me on my TL - see you in 2025."
Filmmaker Sanjay Gupta known for directing films like Kaabil, Shootout at Wadala wrote, "We slept very peacefully and happily knowing that 86 Cr was collected by our exhibitors. Must be in your case, but other people's success does not give us sleepless nights."
Reacting to the same, Pathaan director Siddharth Anand wrote, "Mumbai has always been the city that never sleeps ;) It's ok, I guess some people don't know our real Mumbai!"
He added, "And one more thing. I have infact lived ONLY in Bandra and Juhu both! Just fyi"
There were also some tweets assuming that Vamsi insulted Boney Kapoor by cutting him as he spoke on the panel. Reacting to one such tweet, the producer wrote, "You don't need to teach us how to respect elders, we respect boney ji more than u guys do and there was no disrespect towards boney ji in that conversation it was a healthy discussion, me and boney ji had a nice laugh and hugged each other after the interview… So please dont come to your conclusions with just what you saw.
