Priyanka Upendra had long expressed a desire to venture into direction, but the actor never anticipated the opportunity would come this quickly, nor that her debut feature would be her son Aayush’s launch vehicle. The sudden shift follows director Purushotham’s exit from the project. Purushotham claimed he was unceremoniously dropped from the film midway through production without prior intimation. The filmmaker alleged that nearly half the shoot had been wrapped up, and that senior cinematographer Venu was also abruptly replaced.

Purushotham claimed that while he was mounting the film strictly according to the narrative's demands, creative friction arose because the team sought a far more elevated commercial presentation for Aayush.

Refuting these allegations, Priyanka clarifies that Venu’s exit was initiated entirely by the director himself. "The claim about Venu sir is untrue. Purushotham was the one who didn’t want him on the project," she reveals, adding, "He told us he felt intimidated and couldn't convey his thoughts to Venu sir because of his seniority. We backed him at that point solely to respect the director’s creative space, but the problems only escalated from there."

Priyanka emphasises that frequent delays and professional non-cooperation pushed the production house to the brink. "The producers put him up in a hotel for seven months along with two assistants just to write, but he failed to deliver. After our Kashmir schedule, he went incommunicado for months and never turned up for the edit. The footage lay untouched at editor KM Prakash’s studio. Later, during the Bengaluru schedule, he was canning barely one scene a day, running up expenses of lakhs daily. You cannot treat a massive production like a casual side-gig between college lectures."

While stepping behind the camera marks a milestone, Priyanka maintains it was born out of sheer crisis management. "I always wanted to direct, but I never planned to step in midway like this," she explains. "I had to take over to protect the producers’ heavy investment. We have scrapped his script completely. I spent the last month writing an entirely new story with my team. We are only retaining the core cast, including Aayush and the female lead, since they were already contracted."

She also confirmed that the team is initiating legal recourse against Purushotham for unauthorised media leaks. "He cannot leak private production footage to news channels without consent. We have formally approached the Karnataka Film Chamber of Commerce to resolve the matter legally."