NRI businessman TG Vishwa Prasad founded People Media Factory with a passion for filmmaking, stating his dream of producing 100 films. His initial projects involved collaborations and yielded impressive results. However, he soon became more aggressive focusing on specific combinations and giving certain directors a free hand. 2024 has been a disastrous year for People Media Factory with the production house incurring significant losses. Vishwa Prasad himself admitted to losing hundreds of crores last year.
People Media Factory is now facing a legal battle. They joined Gopichand’s Viswam as co-producers, a project initially launched by Venu Donepudi of Chitralayam Studios. Vishwa Prasad subsequently took complete control, signing agreements to recoup his investment after the film’s release. However, People Media Factory has been opaque about closed deals and the film’s actual financial returns. Viswam, available on Amazon Prime’s pay-per-view basis, trended for several weeks and the platform recently disbursed a substantial revenue share to People Media Factory.
Despite this, Vishwa Prasad has been reluctant to disclose the financials to the film’s original producer Venu and this made Venu to seek justice from the Producers Council and the Film Chamber. Simultaneously, numerous technicians who worked on the film are still awaiting payment. From the director, Srinu Vaitla to key crew members like the music director, cinematographer, editor and writers, payments remain outstanding. The film’s music director Chaitan Bharadwaj, is yet to get more than half of his agreed remuneration and singers’ fees are also unpaid. Telugu360 spoke with some of these individuals and confirmed the extent of the outstanding payments.
People Media Factory’s team has been unresponsive to calls for several months. Various Telugu cinema crafts associations and unions have been notified about the owed payments. Some of the shoots of People Media Factory productions have been halted until partial payments are made. However, significant dues remain unsettled and the production team’s negligence has caused widespread anger, leading those who worked on the film to protest at People Media Factory’s office.
Venu Donepudi is particularly serious and he plans to stall People Media Factory’s upcoming releases until his financial dispute is resolved. At the same time, the unions and associations of Telugu cinema have a similar approach. Vishwa Prasad is now in a legal mess. It would have been good if he had paid the dues for several people who are daily wage workers and those coming from middle class families. The issue of Viswam is a bigger damage for People Media Factory and Tollywood speculates that the production house lost the reputation. Hope Vishwa Prasad realizes about the damage done and clears the dues at the earliest.
