Kangana Ranaut vs Sonu Sood battle is getting more interesting by the day. The whole controversy began when it was reported that Kangana had taken over the directorial reins of Manikarnika: The Queen of Jhansi from its original director, Krish, for the reshoots. The official reason given was that Krish was not available of reshoots, as he is busy with the shoot of his Telugu film, the NTR biopic. The rumour has it, though, that Kangana was not happy with how certain scenes were shot so she took charge. This didn't go down well with Sonu Sood, who has an important role in the film, and he walked out of the film.

While Kangana accused the actor of giving his dates to Simmba and not wanting to work under a female director, Sonu Sood called her incompetent and always playing the female card. Now the producer of Manikarnika, Kamal Jain, has spoken in favour of his lead actress and ghost-director. In an interview to SpotBoye, the producer revealed, "After the last schedule was over, we saw the line-up of the film. On seeing it, we decided that apart from the patchwork, we also needed a few additional scenes. Once the scenes were written, we approached Kangana for additional dates. But Krish had moved on to his next project by then. Given how driven and creatively involved Kangana Ranaut has been on this project since its inception, we realised that she would be the best person to take over the mantle. Hence, there is no hijacking of the project and whatever decisions are being taken are with the full support of the producer and the studio."

As for Sonu, he said, "I have utmost respect and love for Sonu and he is like family to us. With a heavy heart we have mutually decided to part ways due to his date unavailability. He is a thorough professional and have his dates committed to Simmba which is also releasing in December. I would love to work with him in the future again." So unlike Kangana, there is no bashing here. But the actress has the confidence and the support of the producer.

Kamal also confirmed that despite the reshoots, they will be releasing the film on its scheduled release date. He said, "We have an aggressive production schedule ahead of us since we are committed to releasing the film on January 25, 2019. Our team is totally focused and dedicated to finish the patchwork shoot to complete the film on time as our release date of Jan 25, 2019. The post-production and VFX is going on in full swing and as well as the balance and patch shoot." As per reports, Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub is looked at for replacing Sonu Sood in the film.

We wonder what new development we will be hearing on this soon. The movie also stars Ankita Lokhande and Bengali star Jisshu.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Sep 02, 2018 08:17 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).