Kochi: In less than a month after the ugly spat between young actor Shane Nigam and film producer Joby George reached a settlement, the Kerala Film Producers' Association on Thursday decided not to involve the actor in future projects.
The association officials said the actor has violated the contract with producers of his upcoming movie Veyil, produced by Joby George. They also claimed that the actor did not honour the settlement deal.
However, Shane's spokesperson told Onmanorama that he was neither informed about the ban nor briefed on the reason behind it. According to Shane's spokesman, he had shot for the movie till early morning 2am on Thursday. Though the contract demanded 15 days of work from Shane, the team couldn't finish the work in the stipulated time period. They needed more days from Shane to finish the project.
After the end of the scheduled date, Shane couldn't afford to be in the project further. This prompted producer Joby George and Veyil's director to point fingers at the actor claiming a violation of the contract.
Last month, when the dispute started, Shane accused Joby of threatening him for changing his hairstyle. Soon, Joby hit back alleging that the actor had violated a contract signed in connection with the film Veyil.
After raising the allegation in Instagram, Shane had released an audio clip of Joby threatening him. Joby denied Shane's charges in a press conference. The producer said that Shane had violated the contract signed for acting in his film. As per the agreement, Shane was supposed to cut his hair and beard only after completing Joby's film.
Another charge against Shane was that after fixing an amount of Rs 30 lakh, he had demanded Rs 40 lakh to act in the movie. Joby also said that certain other factors were controlling Shane and that he would resort to legal action if the need arose.
However, the dispute was resolved in talks supervised by a representative of AMMA (Association of Malayalam Movie Artists) and producers' association.
As per the decision taken, Shane had to start working for Joby's film Veyil from November 16 after completing a movie titled Qurbaani by November 10.
AMMA and film producers had said that disputes regarding dates and finance were settled.
They had also said that Shane would be paid Rs 16 lakh by the producer as per the deal. The total remuneration for the film would be Rs 40 lakh.
Following the settlement, Joby had apologized to Shane's family over a remark he had earlier made against them. Both of them shook hands in front of reporters to display that a settlement had been reached.
Talking to media, Shane had stated that he was happy with the settlement deal.
"I went live and raised this issue in public just because my mother and my manager were dragged into this," the actor. He also clarified that though he would finish working on this project, he won't join hands again with Joby George.