Aatagara

Aatagara
promotional poster
Directed by	K. M. Chaitanya
Produced by	Dwarakish Yogish
Screenplay by	K. M. Chaitanya, Kannan Parameshwaran
Story by	Kannan Parameshwaran
Starring	Chiranjeevi Sarja Meghana Raj Parul Yadav Anant Nag Anu Prabhakar Achyuth Kumar Dwarakish Prakash Belawadi
Music by	Anoop Seelin
Cinematography	Satya Hegde
Edited by	Haridoss KGF
Production company	Dwarakish Chitra
Release date	28 August 2015 (2015-08-28)
Country	India
Language	Kannada

Aatagara (Kannada: ಆಟಗಾರ: translation: Player) is a 2015 Indian Kannada romantic thriller film directed by K. M. Chaitanya and produced by Dwarakish Chitra in its 49th production. The film has an ensemble cast with as many as 10 protagonists played by Chiranjeevi Sarja, Parul Yadav, Meghana Raj, Anu Prabhakar, Achyuth Kumar, Prakash Belawadi, Balaji Manohar, Pavana Gowda, Sadhu Kokila, Aarohitha Gowda along with Ananth Nag, P. Ravi Shankar and RJ Nethra in key supporting roles. The music is composed by Anoop Seelin. The film released on 28 August 2015. The movie is based on Agatha Christie's mystery novel And Then There Were None, which has already been adopted into many movies and novels in different languages all over the world.

The movie was accused as a remake of 2011 Tamil movie Aduthathu directed by Thakkali Srinivasan. However, director K. M. Chaitanya cleared the air saying that both the movies were based on Agatha Christie's mystery novel And Then There Were None. He also claimed that while few characters - Meghana Raj ( a model who delibarately lets a child drown), Sadhu Kokila (a cook who has killed his owner) and Prakash Belwadi ( a suspicious doctor)- were directly based on the characters from the novel, few other - Anu Prabhakar ( principal of a multicoloured school where a child sex abuse case has been reported), Achyuth Kumar ( TV anchor who does not allow others to air their views ) and Parul Yadav ( a reputed actress who gets away from a drink & drive hit & run accident case)- were based on real life incidents. However, questions were raised as to similarity between the sudden introduction of the master-mind (who does not make an appearance at all in the novel) in both the movies (Nassar in Tamil). Similarities were also found in the reality-show backdrop, ten faces of Raavana, the characterisation of the investigating officer and the one traitor among the reality-show participants (none of which were found in the novel). At this point of time, the team of Aatagara arranged a special screening of the movie for Thakkali Srinivasan in Bangalore. Srinivasan clarified that it is not a remake of his film. He also praised Aatagara of being an extremely well made film. He also revealed that he had made a serial inspired from Agatha Christe's novel And Then There Were None in 1995. Later he made the film Aduthathu inspired by the same. For both these, Kannan Parameshwaran worked on the story. Kannan also wrote the story and co-screenplay for Aatagara inspired by the same novel. So anything similar is to the novel and not his film,Srinivasan said. He also said anyone saying the movie a remake were ignorant and calling this movie a remake would be an absolute joke.