The Canada-based magician Raman Sharma has hired a lawyer in Chennai to demand his salary from Thenandal Films, for his work on the Vijay-starrer Mersal. He had earlier tweeted that he had been contacting the production house for a year since the film’s release, but the production house stopped answering his calls.
The legal notice says that as per the agreement signed between Raman and the production house, Raman should have received a remuneration of Rs 4,32,000. An advance of Rs 1 lakh was paid, but the balance amount has not been settled even though Raman completed the agreed work on the film.
The notice asks Thenandal Films to pay the outstanding amount with an additional interest of 18 percent p.a. within the next 15 days to avoid further legal action.
So I had to hire a lawyer all the way in Chennai from Canada because I trusted the corrupt production house known as @ThenandalFilms These cowards still have not paid me and are hiding in there little hole. Little do they know I will not stop. #cowards #foolingpeople #thug pic.twitter.com/CE53VX3t2V
— Raman Sharma Magic (@RamanMagic) January 19, 2019
Raman brought up this issue publicly in November last year.
He tweeted that he spent five months in Chennai during the shoot for Mersal, and the movie was special to him. He said he was the one to recommend to Atlee the many tricks used in the movie, including the one where Vijay pulls a trishul out of a bag.
Directed by Atlee, the film released during the Deepavali weekend in 2017. It was mired in controversy, but was a big box office hit with a collection of about Rs 250 crore. Vijay had a triple role in the film. Nithya Menen, Samantha Akkineni, and Kajal Aggarwal played leads.
The film was incidentally about corruption in medicine. Vijay was a father, called Thalapathy, and two estranged brothers – a magician and a doctor. A demand for removal of scenes came from doctors and others in medicine who were offended that their industry was shown as corrupt. There were also scenes that criticised GST and Digital India, and the BJP objected to this.
In his tweet, Raman tagged Mersal’s production house and its CEO Hema Rukmani, and said, “The most interesting thing is that movie has to do with ethics and corruption… when you [the production house] have promised me something and failed to deliver.”
