Prerna Arora finds Bollywood getting too hot for her production company

By Team Peeping Moon

on April 11, 2018

Trouble continues to pile up for producer Prerna Arora and her beleaguered production company KriArj Entertainment. The latest bad news, as reported in a Mumbai tabloid today, is that her upcoming musical comedy Fanne Khan directed by Atul Manjrekar has also run into a crisis over alleged non-payment of dues. The film, starring Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and Anil Kapoor, is said to be facing a protest by its crew over payments and they have reportedly stopped shooting and refused to finish pending work on Fanne Khan that includes two songs.

The tabloid failed to get a comment from Prerna. But Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra Pictures, a co-producer of Fanne Khan along with Bhushan Kumar’s T-Series, is reported to have said the shooting of the songs got delayed because the producers were looking at getting a particular choreographer on board.

Two days ago, it was reported in a Bollywood online site that KriArj was also facing a revolt on the sets of its Shahid Kapoor-Shraddha Kapoor social drama Batti Gul Meter Chalu that is under production in the north over alleged non-payment of dues and bounced cheques. The story claimed that the hotel where the crew and cast were accommodated had locked down and its owner had taken custody of all the property of the shoot from location over non-payment.

The crew was stranded and Shahid had wisely decided to reportedly stay put in Mumbai till the problem is solved. Sources alleged that the actor has not received his full payment from KriArj and neither have Shraddha and Yami Gautam who also stars in the film been paid. However, in another publication, Prerna and director Shree Narayan Singh rubbished these allegations and said that the shoot of Batti Gul Meter Chalu was on schedule and they were looking at doing the next schedule in Mumbai after getting dates from the stars.

KriArj, which was started by Prerna and Arjun Kapoor with Rustom in 2016, had its first brush with controversy over Kedarnath, Sara Ali Khan’s debut film that was slated for release in December. Director and co-producer Abhishek Kapoor served them a termination notice following all sorts of alleged trouble with Prerna and KriArj. Kedarnath still continues to remain in limbo but Sara fortunately has been snapped up by Karan Johar and Rohit Shetty for Simmba opposite Ranveer Singh.

Simultaneously, there were reports about Anushka Sharma’s Pari not being promoted by co-producer KriArj and about Prerna supposedly owing the third producer, Kyta Productions, money. Then John Abraham and his JA Entertainment filed a termination notice against co-producer KriArj for non-payment over the actor’s Pokhran nuclear tests thriller Parmanu. Kyta Productions, which along with Zee Studios is a co-producer on Parmanu, is also believed to have served KriArj a termination notice on its three-film contract after Pari.

Meanwhile, yet another Bollywood online site has reported the first day’s proceedings from the Bombay High Court where John and Prerna are locked in a legal battle over Parmanu. The case opened on Monday to some rather interesting developments and the second hearing is today. According to the site, “It is barely known that Ajay Kapoor’s Kyta Productions was a co-producer on Parmanu. However, they revealed that they had paid Rs. 5.5 crore to KriArj towards production of the film, information that was suppressed in KriArj’s complaint. At the hearing, Kyta announced that they were cancelling their agreement with the production house. Zee Studios, also part of the hearing, informed the court that they had paid Rs 27 crore for acquiring satellite, digital and IPR in Parmanu and this money was used for production of the film. It is now on record that KriArj has already pocketed more money than what they claimed to have paid for production of Parmanu.”