Vijay’s father filmmaker Chandrasekhar slams Beast director Nelson: ‘They think we have a star, no need for screenplay’

Actor Vijay’s father and filmmaker SA Chandrasekhar has slammed Beast director Nelson Dilip Kumar for making a movie ‘solely relying on Vijay’s stardom’. In a recent interview, the filmmaker expressed disappointment over the film’s screenplay and questioned Nelson for not doing his ‘homework’ on RAW agents and cross-border terrorism, which serve as the film’s important plot points. Chandrasekhar is a noted director, having made over 70 films in various south languages, as well as a handful of Hindi films. Also read: Beast box office day 5 collection: Vijay’s film nears ₹200 crore globally, domestic earnings affected by KGF: Chapter 2

Beast marked the maiden collaboration of director Nelson and Vijay. In the movie, Vijay plays a character called Veeraraghavan, one of the best spies the country has ever had. The film follows the character as he attempts to rescue people being held hostage by terrorists inside a mall. The film, which opened in theatres amid high expectations last week, has mostly earned mixed response from critics and audiences. After a bumper opening day, the film has struggled to keep pace.

In a recent interview, Chandrasekhar shared his thoughts about Beast and what he thought went wrong with the movie. “This is a film that was made solely relying on Vijay’s stardom. Young filmmakers deliver an excellent first film in terms of content, technology and making. They also somehow achieve good results with the second film. When they begin to get the projects of big superstars, these young filmmakers begin to think, ‘now that we have dates of these heroes, we can make movies whichever way we want.’ They think he (the star) already has a huge fan following and his film will run successfully in theatres, so no need for a screenplay and things like that. And they make a movie with a few songs and fights,” Chandrasekhar told Thanthi TV as reported by IndianExpress.com.

Furthermore, Chandrasekhar said the film which talks about ISIS terrorists and RAW agents hasn’t done enough research to study how they operate. “You need to take time to study about all these things. You can’t just rush into a project because you’ve got dates from a star hero. A good screenplay will immerse audiences into a story and this was missing in this film,” he added.

In it’s opening weekend, Beast breached the ₹200 crore club worldwide. This is the fifth time a Vijay starrer has breached the ₹200-crore club. However, much of that earning is due to a solid opening day on Wednesday. Since then, the film has seen a massive drop each day outside Tamil Nadu, largely due to the success of the Kannada film KGF: Chapter 2. Even in Tamil Nadu, KGF 2 has earned more than the local title over the last five days.

The film was dubbed and released in Hindi, Telugu and Malayalam. The Hindi version–released as Raw–turned out to be dud, earning just ₹50 lakh from its first day of release and never showing any upward trend after that.

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