Mahesh Manjrekar reveals he left Swatantrya Veer Savarkar biopic due to Randeep Hooda’s interference in the script, says ‘his obsession killed the film for me’

Randeep Hooda is making his directorial debut with Swatantrya Veer Savarkar. Besides directing the movie, Randeep will be seen as a producer and essaying the lead role in the film. Earlier, Mahesh Manjrekar was about to direct the film. However, he stepped down as director and reports were rife that he is doing it because of Bigg Boss Marathi’s shoot. But now, Mahesh Manjrekar has revealed that he backed out of the project due to interference of Randeep Hooda.

Mahesh Manjrekar claims Randeep Hooda interfered with the script

Recently, in an interview, Mahesh ji revealed he was initially impressed with Randeep Hooda’s research around the movie but soon the actor started to question the script. “I met Randeep and I saw that he’s quite sincere and was involved with the subject. We had a couple of meetings. He read several books related to the freedom struggle, World Wars etc. I found it quite interesting. The first draft was read out to him. He had a few issues and that was okay. Then even during the second draft, he had (some objections). I told him, ‘If this is what’s going to happen, there will be a problem in the film’. He assured me that once the script is locked, he won’t question anything,” the filmmaker said.

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Manjerakar mentioned that he does not like interference but Randeep Hooda continued to have problems. “I was very happy that the script was finally locked. However, again, a few issues cropped up. He wanted to incorporate Hitler, the King of England, the Prime Minister of England, etc. He wanted to incorporate Lokmanya Tilak’s ‘Swaraj is my birthright and I’ll get it’ episode. I wondered how all this matters to Savarkar’s biopic. I reasoned that we were doing a biopic on Savarkar,” he added.

For those unversed, the film is in legal trouble as the director-actor Randeep Hooda and producer Sandeep Singh have both claimed their ownership over the copyrights for the story.

Also Read: Randeep Hooda on his transformation for Swatantrya Veer Savarkar: I am 18 kilos down already