There is a hush talk going on in the Filmnagar circles that top director K Raghavendra Rao has knocked away Rs 5 crore from debutante producer Mahesh Reddy.
According to the talk, Raghavendra Rao made the latest Nagarjuna-starrer Shirdi Sai Baba by roping in Mahesh Reddy, who did not head or tail of film production. He made the film excellently and the producer made good profits, thanks to Sai Baba. But, grapevine has it that Raghavendra Rao had offered to make the film at a cost of Rs 23 crore and made Mahesh Reddy invest the amount. While Raghavendra Rao completed the film for just Rs 18 crore, he showed in the account books that he had spent all the Rs 23 crore. It means, he knocked away Rs 5 crore.
In any case, the film was sold to the distributors for Rs 26 crore, which means the producer had made a table profit of Rs 3 crore. The distributors have so far made Rs 18 crore, but Mahesh Reddy says there would be no loss even to the distributors in the final tally.
