With his ode to romance ‘Yeto Vellipoindhi Manasu’ not raking in the moolah on the expected lines despite receiving critical acclaim, director Gautham Vasudev Menon, regarded as one of the finest filmmakers down South, says that ‘nothing went wrong’ with the way the audience embraced the film featuring Nani and Samantha in the lead roles. “It was a small film and we made it under Rs 5 crore budget and we got our money back. In fact, the Telugu version fared much better than the Tamil version ‘Neethaane En Ponvasantham’,” he quips, in an exclusive conversation with Hans Talkies.

The director ace who is producing Nithiin-starrer ‘Courier Boy Kalyan’ (CBK), helmed by debutante Prema Sai, on his banner Photon Kathaas Production says he doesn’t take his assistants to do his productions. “None of my assistants did my productions. In fact I’m producing outside directors - Radha Mohan and Vignesh Shivan’s new projects. Likewise director Prem Sai, who likes my work, came to me as a director and narrated a script. As long as the script is fine, I’m open to produce others films,” he states.

Bowled over by the mix of romance, action, comedy, and thrilling elements in equal proportions, Menon felt that the ‘CBK’ which is made in Tamil (Tamilselvanum Thaniyar Anjalu) too, need not necessarily be altered to suit the Telugu audience. “The subject is so strong that never did I even ponder about making the slightest change for the Telugu version.”

One of the very few Tamil makers who have made a straight Telugu film, Menon is game for more Telugu projects if the script and timings work out. “I have lots of script and I’m setting them up. It’s premature to talk about my future Telugu projects.

”With Pawan Kalyan’s ‘Attarintiki Daaredhi’ landing in the hands of pirates even before its theatrical release, Menon attributes the onus on the audience not to encourage such illegal measures. “Telugu media has now woken up because of Pawan’s film but we’ve been fighting the piracy menace in Tamil Nadu for a long time and still continuing to do so. The audience has to finally reject it. In spite of the online leak, people have given the film a tremendous response and that’s how it should be,” he says, adding, “If the audiences get their hands on the pirated copies they should say that ‘we are not watching this stuff’.”

Menon believes that ‘no measures can be taken to curb the piracy’. “Technology can always be cracked. It’s up to you - the education that you’ve learnt and the upbringing that you had - will tell you that online leaks are not the right things to encourage,” he stands firm.

Up next, the filmmaker is collaborating with Suriya for ‘Dhruva Natchathiram’. He has already shot a few portions and the fresh schedule will commence soon.