Friday, January 15, 2021

Ilaiyaraaja to score music for Ponniyin Selvan web series on OTT

 

Ponniyin Selvan, the all time Tamil classic written by Kalki Krishnamurthy is to be a mega web series  telecast on an OTT from April 18 2022, according to the producers. For the first time, Illaiyaraaja will be scoring for a web series and famed art director Sabu Cyril will be looking after the art and production design along with the Baahubali team. The series will be of 125 hours and will be directed by ad-filmmaker Ajay Pratheep and spread over 9 seasons.  The shoot will commence on April 18 2021. On June 2nd, the birthday of Illairaja will see music recording commence. As the subject is evergreen, the title will be Chiranjeevi Ponniyin Selvan.

Ajay Pratheeb had won many awards for his ad-films and did shoots for former CM Jayalalithaa’s projects like the desalination plant at Minjur. He is a former Adyar Film Institute alumni. His mother is yesteryear actress Omana ,who has acted opposite MGR and other heroes. Ajay worked with cinematographer K S Prasanth who won the first national award for a Tamil film. Written in Tamil, in five volumes, or about 2210 pages, it tells the story of early days of Arulmozhivarman, who later became the great Chola emperor Rajaraja Chola . The book took more than three years to write. It was first published as a series in the Kalki, a Tamil language magazine, during the 1950s and was later integrated into a novel. The craze for the series which was published weekly was such that it elevated the magazine circulation to reach a staggering figure of 71,366 copies – no mean achievement in a newly independent India.

Even today, the novel has a cult following and fan base among people of all generations. The book continues to be admired and garner critical acclaim for its tightly woven plot, vivid narration, the wit of the dialogue, and the way in which the power struggle and intrigues of the Chula empire were depicted.

A film series adaptation of the Novel is in production and is directed by the renowned Indian filmmaker Mani Ratnam. (Source; Wikipedia)

MGR was so struck by this literary work , he bought the rights to make it into a film under his banner. He had signed Illaiyaraaja for the music. However it did not take off and MGR declared the classic  as a national work and opened it to anyone to produce it. Producers are Eternitee Motion Kraft Pvt Ltd and EterntyStar. It will be a one hour telecast on weekdays and a 45 day gap between each season. Later it will shift to a weekend slot. The star cast is kept under wraps.

 

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