3 min readHyderabadUpdated: Jun 11, 2026 03:16 PM IST
Veteran Tamil film financier and distributor Tiruppur Subramaniam has publicly criticised director RJ Balaji over the troubled release of the Suriya-starrer Karuppu, saying he has recovered only half his investment in the film and that Balaji took credit for its success while others did the actual work of getting it to theatres.
Subramaniam said the director’s public display of emotion conveniently ignored the behind-the-scenes scramble that actually got the film into theatres. “When Karuppu became successful, the director of the film threw up his collar,” he said, using a Tamil idiom for taking credit or acting with arrogance. “But we know the hardship we faced in those two days to release that film,” Subramaniam said, adding that apart from actor Suriya, neither the director, other cast members, or technicians stepped in to help when the release was in jeopardy.
Using Karuppu as an example, Tiruppur Subramaniam criticised delays and rising production costs in the film industry. “No big film is completed on time. Karuppu was supposed to release last year for Diwali. Directors give producers a budget of 30 to 40 crores and end up spending 80 crores,” he said. The film had indeed been originally planned for a Diwali 2025 release, but was pushed multiple times due to unfinished VFX and scheduling issues before finally arriving in May 2026.
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He alsos alleged that once the film became successful, RJ Balaji was quick to take credit publicly, while those who put their money on the line are still waiting to be paid back. “I have invested my own money for the release of this film. I have only got 50 percent of it back,” he said.
What happened?
Even after months of delays, Karuppu came dangerously close to not releasing at all. On May 14, producer SR Prabhu took to social media to apologise to audiences and stated that the 9 am shows of the film had been cancelled due to unavoidable reasons. The cancellations then spread through the day, with noon, matinee, and evening shows also called off.
Shows were being cancelled one by one, and refunds were being quietly processed. It was only when SCREEN began probing that a clearer picture emerged, and it pointed not to Karuppu itself, but to a film that had come out three years earlier.
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The trouble traced back to Japan, the 2023 action comedy directed by Raju Murugan and starring Karthi, also produced by Dream Warrior Pictures. According to a source from the production team who spoke to SCREEN, the Tamil Nadu distributors’ federation had urged theatres to either halt or cancel screenings of Karuppu, citing unresolved losses from that earlier film. “Distributors in Tamil Nadu are demanding compensation, alleging that the losses, estimated to be around Rs 25 crore, have not been settled yet,” the source told SCREEN.
Karuppu eventually released on May 15, and went on to earn over Rs 300 crore at the box office. By most commercial measures, it is a success.
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