Akshay Kumar‘s latest release, Samrat Prithviraj did not do as well as expected at the Box Office.
The movie was made on a ₹300 crore budget but it has only made ₹62 crores at the box office.
As per the latest reports, there are rumors that YRF chief Aditya Chopra has blamed Akshay Kumar for the flop saying that he didn’t even grow a real mustache for the movie.
Samrat Prithviraj director Chandraprakash Dwivedi has defended this rumor. In an interview, the filmmaker said that he stands by his star and that his previous statements have been ‘twisted’. “Two days after the release of the film, I spoke to a lot of people. And I maintained one thing- my belief in Akshay Kumar remains unshakeable. I have done two more upcoming films with him- Ram Setu and Oh My God 2. I feel that my words are being twisted by people. Voh apni taraf se likh rahe hain, jisse mujhe thodi pareshaani hai (People are misinterpreting my words, and this bothers me).”
Asked about the rumors of YRF chief Aditya Chopra being annoyed at Akshay for not even growing a real mustache for the movie, the filmmaker said, “Aditya has never said this. Is it happening for the first time that an actor has worn a fake mustache? On June 2, I, Aditya, and Akshay were together, and Aditya categorically told me that he is very happy with the film, and I gave him whatever he wanted, and he will never say that I failed in my duty. Same for Akshay.”
In an earlier interview, the filmmaker addressed Samrat Prithviraj’s financial failure, and said, “YRF presented this story at a huge scale. But people had a problem. It’s still unclear to me what problem they had. The writers did an honest job about following the historical facts. We are well aware about our storytelling responsibilities.”
