You are here: Home > News > The big Fight!

Fans of Mohanlal and Mamooty turned theatres in Kerala into battlefields as they tore up posters, broke doors and windows and roughed up exhibitors on the eve of the release of Twenty20. 

Trouble began when Mohanlal's fans took a close look at the film posters and decided that Mamooty looked larger than life, while their hero seemed to be tucked away in a corner. Fuelling their ire were rumours that Mamooty dominated the screen in the film as well. Livid with the "injustice" meted out to their hero, they went on a rampage. 

Quick-fix solution

The Association of Malayalam Movie Artistes (AMMA), which has produced Twenty20, was forced to intervene with a hasty solution. A new batch of posters has been ordered, where both the super stars get equal prominence. As for the film itself, the producers have been speaking with Mohanlal fans, explaining that the script demanded that Mamooty appear in the first half of the film, while Mohanlal makes his grand entry after the interval.
 
Not wanting to leave anything to chance, AMMA has now decided to allot particular theatres in Kochi, Kannur, Kottayam and Thiruvananthapuram for fans of the two superstars, to ensure that there are no further clashes between the two groups.

My hero or yours?

When two mega movies, with superstars, are scheduled for release on the same day, fireworks are to be expected. The high drama, typical of Bollywood, has now spread to film fraternities elsewhere in the country. In Chennai, the competition between Rajini-Kamal fans has grown to epic proportions. Vijay loyalists invariably clash with Ajith fans when their respective demi-gods hit the big screen the same day. But the fact that even the Malayalam film industry is experiencing such fanaticism is worrisome. 

Rough ride

Though made with the intention of helping veteran artistes, particularly those who have fallen on bad times, Twenty20 has been mired in controversy from day one. The producers had a harrowing time as they juggled the date diaries of their impressive star cast. "Mamooty, Mohanlal, Suresh Gopi, Dileep and Jayaram are some of the big heroes who had agreed to work for the film without charging a single paisa. But working out a date schedule for these stars was nothing short of a nightmare," revealed a unit source.

Twenty20 also got bad press when AMMA decided to impose a ban on stars who refused to be part of the project. The producers began to breathe easy as the film's release neared, but Mohanlal fans have given them a new set of worries. 

"We hope our decision to release prints of the film in specific theatres for specific audiences will solve the problem," a source told HiTLiST.

For their own sake, we hope their ploy works. How they will differentiate between troublemakers and true fans is something they need to think about.

The Association of Malayalam Movie Artists

The association is the first of its kind in India because every actor in the Malayalam industry must become its member.

President: Innocent General Secy: Mohanlal
VPs: Nedumudi Venu, Dileep
Jt Secy: Edavela Babu
Treasurer: Mukesh Exec Committee: Rajan P Dev, Vijayaraghavan, Sreeraman, Siddique, Maniyanpilla Raju, Kunchacko Boban, Bindu Panicker, Cuckoo Parameswaran, Harisree Asokan and Cochin Haneefa.
- Wikipedia