Kangana steps into complete Manikarnika

After director Krish abandoned Manikarnika: The Queen of Jhansi, Kangana Ranaut had to take up reins of direction on her hands and reshoot several portions of the period drama. Krish left the project mid way to work on the South movie - the NTR biopic. Kangana has been working tirelessly for the war saga and completed shoot recently. But that is not the end of it all as a similar issue has cropped up during the film's post production.

While Kangana has worked night and day to finish the shoot of the movie it still needs to be edited. However, Krish has told the makers he won't be available to do the same. Says a source close to the development, "Krish called up the producers of Manikarnika and informed them that he won't be able to sit for the post-prod work on the film. He is busy finishing his South project which is being planned as a two-parter. It's become more of an ego tussle now with him releasing the second part of the NTR biopic on the same day as Manikarnika."

Hence the makers have now requested Kangana to finish the edits, as well. Kangana has directed 90-95% of movie's drama sequences. "Whatever portions of the film has been retained are majorly the action scenes, which have been shot and designed by Hollywood stunt director Nick Powell. Kangana has reshot everything else in the 45-day run on schedule that was wrapped up recently." Despite the entire fracas, Kangana did not want to take the director's credit. But with Krish orphaning the film, the makers have had no choice but to return to her now to complete Manikarnika. Kamal Jain, the producer of Manikarnika has spoken to Kangana to take up the director's credit given for the effort she's put in on the project but she's not accepted it yet."

Currently, the team is running against time to finish The film has VFX and post production work. Kangana had to make several adjustments and changes in her date diary to accommodate this. She also reportedly lost out on quite a few big endorsement deals for the same. A source close to the actress tells us, "Kangana has been working round the clock on this film, without making any demands. When the producers reached out to her for the post production work and told her about Krish's unavailability, she requested the makers of her next film Panga (Ashwini Iyer Tiwary and Fox Star Studios) to make amends in the dates of their schedule. They understood her situation and decided to make the necessary adjustments. The first schedule for Panga which was earlier supposed to be of 35 days has now been cut short to 20 days. The plan was to roll the film on October 26 in Bhopal, but now it will kickstart only post Diwali." In addition to this, Kangana will also regularly fly in and out of Mumbai, once she starts shooting for Panga, to get Manikarnika ready in time.