2018 opens bigger than Chatrapathi in Mumbai - Raja and Bharathiraja team up after a decade

According to trade reports, on its first day, the 2018 Malayalam film collected more than the highly anticipated Chatrapathi and went on to surpass IB 71's collections by the weekend. Despite Bellamkonda Srinivas' popularity from his dubbed films on YouTube, his Hindi debut turned out to be a disappointment. The film was heavily promoted in Mumbai, but the Hindi remake of the original, which was directed by S S Rajamouli, failed to impress. In contrast, the 2018 Malayalam film's Hindi dubbed version collected Rs 1.10 crores on its opening day alone, thanks to positive reviews and word-of-mouth publicity. The film's failure can be attributed to the fact that audiences have been watching Hindi dubbed versions of Rajamouli's Telugu films since Bahubaali. Although the original film was released 18 years ago and the remake retained the same screenplay, some felt that it appeared outdated to today's audience. Additionally, comparisons between Srinivas and Prabhas, who starred in the Telugu film, worked against the former. Some reviews criticized Srinivas for doing nothing more than beating up bullies, while others felt that Nushrat Barucha's performance was her worst to date. Some even labeled the Chatrapati remake as one of the worst films in recent times. In contrast, the 2018 Malayalam film has been a box office success. It had a sensational opening weekend overseas, grossing around 15.05 crores before continuing to perform well during the week and bringing in a total overseas collection of around 28 crores during its first week. The film's opening weekend in Gulf countries was even bigger than that of Marvel's Part 3, and in the UAE box office, it beat out "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3" to become the biggest movie of the weekend.

To celebrate the deep and cheerful tales of Modern Love Chennai, Prime Video launched an exciting multi-composer music album for the third Indian adaptation of Modern Love Franchise, the internationally acclaimed Original anthology helmed by John Carney. Following the success of Modern Love Mumbai and Modern Love Hyderabad, mesmerising music remains consistent in the Tamil edition too. Illustrating a blend of captivating stories set in Chennai, the series explores relationships, pushes boundaries, and promises to warm your hearts. The series brings together music stalwarts - Maestro Ilaiyaraaja, Yuvan Shankar Raja, G. V. Prakash Kumar, Sean Roldan, and singers including Shivani Pannerselvam, Vagu Mazan, Ramya Nambeesan, Christopher Stanley, Ananya Bhat, Priya Mali and Padmapriya Raghavan. The album beautifully captures the essence of each story of the Amazon Original series. Music is distributed bu Sont Music

Nayanthara produced Rocky 's Hindi rights sold- Our report on March 15th 2022

 We at southfilmy.blogspot reported that Vignesh Shivan had screened the film Rocky and upcoming Kaathula to actor Ranbir Kapoor for remakes and also for directing it. ( https://southfilmy.blogspot.com/2022/03/director-atlee-hindi-film-dropped.html). It now looks that Rocky has been sold to Wakaoo Films as per the tweet from producer Rowdy Pictures and the Mumbai company. The name of the director and the cast has not been announced. The Mumbai company has upcoming film Double XL with Sonakshi Sinha - Huma Qureshi ( Valimai fame) and Mahat Radhavendra from Kollywood in it

Director Arun Matheswaran has after Rocky signed Actor Dhanush for his next to be produced by Sathyajothi Films. Arun's next release is Saani Kayitham with Dhanush brother - director Selvaraghavan and Keerthi Suresh in the lead and for a direct OTT release in April.

Wakaoo is already producing a Gujrati film starring four heroines playing members of a Anti Terror Squad that nabbed  a dreaded dacoit. The production company had acquired the rights to make a film based on the book written by Amish Tripathi - Suhaldev : The King Who saved India . Ad film maker Senthil Kumar is the director. .

Later a report said that producer Boxwala who is producing Shershaah with Siddharth Malhotra has bought the rights. Suheldev is an Indian king hailing from Shravasti in Uttar Pradesh, who vanquished Mahmud of Ghazni's army in Bahraich. Wakaoo's web series Candy won the award at Dadasaheb Phalke Film Festival 2022. The company is also associated with OMG2 starring Akshay Kumar and is a mythological film with lead actor playing Lord Shiva,

Oomai Vizhigal - the real Independence Day for Kodambakkam

 

The real Independence or liberation of Tamil Cinema came with the release of Oomai Vizhigal , the Abavannan produced – R Aravindraj directed film released on August 15 1986. The release poster of the film was a Censor certificate got from the Tribunal after the ban was lifted. The film that ran for 150 days  gave a visiting card to hundreds of student’s of the Adyar Film Institute (AFI) who after passing out were the butt of ridicule in Kodambakkam.   A film Aval Appadithan released in 1978 and directed by Film Institute graduate Rudrayya with a bold subject of women emancipation and gender bias bombed miserably at the box office. Though Bharathiraaja and Mrinal Sen lauded the film, the subject went over the head of the audience. Sripriya was the central figure with Kamal Haasan ,a busy Star and a struggling Rajinikanth in the cast. Later Kamal Haasan described the film as "Aval Appadithan was a guerilla attack on the industry by insiders like me. It slipped through their fingers, so to speak. With all the attention that films get these days, I doubt we can get away with such a film any more.”

The gureilla attack was on the Institute pass outs who Kodambakkam said could make only such art films. The technical quality too was criticized. It did win State Awards and further consolidated the belief that these guys could get only awards and no rewards at BO. In 1984 August 24^th, My dear Kuttichathan, the first 3D film of India was released. The Tamil distribution went begging as distributors laughed at the practice of giving 3D glasses and taking it back from audience and the feasibility of recovering money by theatres after it incurred costs for revamp of projector screen and sound. Also a rumor did the round that the 3D glasses spread Madras Eye, a seasonal virus. Kayaar ,an AFI pass out bought the film’s Tamil Nadu area and had Rajinikanth come in a promo to say the glasses were safe. The film was a blockbuster and Meeran Sahib Street got its first Adyar alumni.

Abavannan who studied in the AFI, at first was thrilled with Sholay and embarked to direct  a 70 MM – 6 track stereophonic film in Tamil. Even songs were recorded in Mumbai with L Vaidyanathan as music director.The film got delayed and Abavannan took his short film given to AFI and saked his friend to rework on it.The technical crew was all AFI and its music director Manoj Gyan was got through their association with him in Mumbai during the shelved 70MM film. With Jaishankar joining the cast, things moved easily and came in Srividya, Ravichandran and Vagai Chandasekar pitched for Vijaykanth ( the role meant for Sivakumar ,who after a flop film with a AFI graduate decided to have no truck with such filmmakers). Arun Pandian, classmate of Abavannan got his friend Karthik, the hot selling Star for an extended cameo.

A crime thriller, censors banned the film as it was found to have pro- LTTE portions.  One of the songs in the film is still very dear to pro LTTE groups all over the World. After accepting cuts, the producer to shut the mouth of distributors who said that censor certificate was not got ,decided to release its first poster ( today it could be First Look) two days before theatre release with only a copy of the revised Censor copy on it. The censor Chief felt peeved as cows were chewing the poster with his name on it.

The film saw the entry of Disco Shanthi , Editor Jayachandran, Diamond Babu as PRO and his father Filmnews Anandan played a photographer in the film. The rapport that Jaishankar who played Editor of an investigative Daily had with the press and also some of them too acted as press reporters in it , helped the publicity.

After this film’s hit, Vijaykanth and his friend Rawther together gave umpteen students of AFI the much needed break and the jinx on them got removed. It was truly an Independence Day that Kodambakkam still remembers. The AFI has now led to many hi-tech Film institute’s and visual communication being a part of the college curriculum. Today the burning issue for Kodambakkam is resuming of film shootings and opening of cinema halls. Only then Tamil Cinema can celebrate I’Day says Bharathiraaja.