Suriya puts pillayar suzhi for biggies release on OTT

 

Suriya  puts  the pillayar suzhi (Ganesha Circle) for biggies of Tamil Cinema to take the OTT route by announcing that Soorarai Pottru (SP) will release on October 30 in the Amazon Prime Video platform. On August 19^th, we reported the story headlined – Telugu’s Natural Star Nani opens the OTT doors for South Filmdom. It has come true. A background information about pillayar suzhi - This came to symbolize Ganesha, the scribe who helped Vyasa write down the Mahabharata. Since then the Pillayar Suzhi is supposed to make things auspicious and bring good luck.

The theater owners as expected are angry. Tirupur Subramanian of the exhibitor’s body says that unless they have at least 2 biggies in hand to bring crowds while reopening it is difficult to bring in people after reopening. With SP gone, now Vijay’s Master remains. He says that as Suriya is free to decide on which platform to decide, exhibitors too are free to choose their films. He laughs at the stance that Suriya took the decision as a producer. He asks whether Suriya paid Rs 30 cr as renumeration to anybody as producer. All the expenses were met by the co-producer a Mumbai company. He says that Suriya says that he has taken a cut in earnings from the usual figure he gets from a film but for exhibitors it is more losses. He debunks the claim that Suriya has got permission to shoot for 2 films.

Suriya has announced a Rs 5 cr amount to be used for Covid warriors and this would blunt the opposition to the OTT move.  SP price for a post theatrical release in OTT was fixed. After the  Nani V film deal, a similar deal was inked almost a month ago with SP producers. The deal is Rs 60 cr for premiere release in all languages and after 60 days it can be released in theaters by the producers. SP’s  satellite rights was already sold to Star – Vijay for Rs 20 cr and Hindi dubbing for Rs 12 cr.  Overseas rights was committed for Rs 12 cr and this might drop drastically to Rs 3 cr. The opening response of TENET in theaters in USA and SE Asia has been too poor. According to trade the SP producers have made a Rs 25cr profit before release.