Zinta plays spoilsport

Ranbir Kapoor was supposed to fly out to South Africa in March to shoot his cameo for Roy, along with Arjun Rampal. The film's director was to leave for a recce with his Director of Photography (DOP) S Nataraja on February 8. But the plans have gone awry after Preity Zinta filed an FIR at the Khar police station against Nataraja. Her contention is that Natarajan, who was also the DOP of her home production Ishq in Paris, took an advance of Rs 20 lakh from her and is yet to return the amount despite not dropping out of the film.

Following the complaint, Nataraja, who has worked on films like Love Aaj Kal and Raanjhanaa, has taken off to Chennai and is trying to get anticipatory bail. He has told Vikramjit to wait till the dispute is settled. 

According to a source close to the development Nataraja was dropped for another DOP because Preity wanted to cut corners. "She had signed Nataraja for Rs 85 lakh and had given him Rs 20 lakh as the signing amount. He had worked on the film for eight months before he was dropped. He thinks he was entitled to the advance," reasons the source. "Preity's sudden move took him by surprise."

Nataraja has now approached Anil Mehta, the industry's senior cinematographer, to play the mediator and last weekend he met the actress.

Vikramajit confirmed the news saying, "Nataraja has my full support. I will wait for him, I hope the crisis will be over by this month's end."

When contacted, Nataraja said, "I will come to Mumbai soon to sort out the matter. I had done a lot of work on Preity's film. I don't know what has been conveyed to her by her production team. There is definitely some misunderstanding but we should be able to sort things out."