HYDERABAD: A complaint on charges of cheating was lodged against the makers of Prabhas starrer ‘Saaho’ at the Madhapur police station on Thursday. The plaint was filed by a Bengaluru-based bag manufacturing company Outshiny India Private Limited. The complainant alleged that though the makers had made an agreement to use the bags of their brand in the movie, the movie did not have any scenes with their bags. The makers had apparently collected an amount of `37 lakh from the firm for this product placement.
In the complaint, the firm management alleged that their manufacturers had entered into an agreement with the movie’s production house UV Creations, through a celebrity’s service company KWAN (South) Celebrity Service Private Limited, represented by its CEO Himank Duvvuru. After the makers of the movie promised to promote the brand through the movie by product placement, an agreement was made accordingly.
Based on this, Outshiny paid Rs 37 lakh to UV creations and another Rs 1.49 lakh to the KWAN (South) Celebrity Service.
However, when Saaho was released on August 30 2019, they found that the producers did not mention their brand in the movie. As this was a violation of their agreement, the firm demanded their money back. However, there was allegedly no response from the producers or the celebrity service agency.
Outshiny further stated that they had made huge investments on digital marketing in view of the agreement, due to which they incurred a loss to the tune of over Rs 1.38 crore.
As the accused failed to respond to the firm’s requests, they lodged a complaint with the police. Madhapur Inspector S Venkat Reddy told Express that they have sought legal opinion on the issue.