Rajinikanth's Annaatthe director's brother- actor Bala cheated

 

`Siruthai’ Siva , director of Rajinikanth’s Annatthe has a brother - Actor – director Bala . a popular actor in Malayalam films. Bala who married singer Amrutha Suresh and divorced her  made a startling revealation. He said  70% of the money that he saved from his acting career ( mostly in Malayalam films) had to been given off forcibly due to the designs of a few relatives and friends who cheated and exploited him. This he said was in start of 2020 and followed by this set back , came the lock down period that froze all work and payments. All the films that he was working were  held up. He was sitting at home doing nothing.

He said that his weakness was exploited and his hard earned money was just taken away by those people. He did not explicitly name the people but said that many knew who he was speaking about. He said his relatives and a few friends cheated him. He was sitting at home without any work and money.

He said many may think as to why he did not seek the help of his parents . His father director Jeyakumar had worked close to 400 documentaries and short films. He paased away on November 2020.  Bala’s brother is Siva who directed four hit films of Ajith and Siruthai starring Karthi. He is now directing Rajinikanth’s Annatthe. Bala said that his father ,  sister and his brother were all well off but were all self made. So he never felt that it was proper to go to them. He has not even asked a share of the ancestral property. Bala’s grandfather Velan  is the owner of Arunachalam studios in Chennai.

It was during this time that he realized that if he could  find it tough to go through this phase of lock down , then what would be the fate of a common man. Currently, he is acting in Annatthe and has a film  opposite Mammooty and a few other projects. Bala said that an accident had turned his life upside down. He got bloated up and it was Ajith who encouraged him to come back to films. He said that he was going through a depression and Ajith called him for a makeup test for Vedachalam. Bala took a look at the mirror and left. Bala later acted with Ajith in Veeram.

Bala said that the reports that he saw Amrutha Suresh at a singing reality show where he was a judge and that he fell for her and got married  , was totally false. He said that interviewer after interviewer came with the assumption that the story of falling in love at reality show was true. He tried several times to correct it but it did not work and so he finally just nodded his head to it.

He divorced his wife after three years of separation. They have a baby girl who is with Amrutha. After their marriage breakup, a phone conversation between him and Amrutha was leaked. The tape was a conversation between him and a producer's wife .He was also romantically linked with actress Pratakeesha. He made a cameo in Lucifer , the 2020’s Kerala’s biggest hit .

Mohanlal's man Friday Antony Perumbavoor bluffs his way to justify Drishyam 2 on Amazon

Does a man facing bankruptcy  start his production offices from his own building during lockdown? Does he conduct the wedding of his daughter in a big way ?  Does he fund another movie during this period with a Star ? Yes. One and only Antony Perumbavoor , man Friday of Mohanlal. But when it comes to taking a market risk to bank on theaters, he cites financial squeeze as reason to sell the film to OTT.   Theater owners say that Mohanlal should have shown the care that Vijay took to keep the exhibitors alive in Tamil Nadu. Like with Master where Vijay's uncle is a producer along with Lalith. Master's OTT rights was already sold to Amazon for a whooping Rs 80cr before lockdown. Vijay has double the market that Mohanlal commands in the South and could have easily sold it off to make his bucks.

If Antony says that his Rs 100 cr was blocked in Marakkar starring Lal and directed by Priyadarshan  and so he had to sell Drishyam to get the money to release Marakka ,it means the profit from Drishyam  would be  used to pay the interest on money taken for production of Marakkar. Lalith too faced the same problem as he was having to keep away distributors who paid crores as advance for Master. Apart from this, his three big budgeted films with top actors are stuck due to COVID..

Antony claims that OTT offered him money for Marakkar that would have given him profits. No OTT would pay  anything more than Rs 60 cr for a Malayalam film, even it has an pan Indian subject. Marakkar does not have any such appeal and neither does Lal - Priyan combo. 

Bare truth is that Drishyam in theaters was a risk that Antony was not willing to share with exhibitors. Secondly the money from Drishyam cleared his debts and thus making him harvest all the returns of Marakkar without sharing with anybody. The claim that they waited till December 31 to know whether theaters in Kerala open and then signed a deal with Amazon is a lie as there was no talks done with any exhibitors about the release terms.

 The money is yours and you can decide how to sell your ware. Do not make it look like you are doing a service to industry. The line that by selling Drishyam 2 to OTT you have saved Marakkar for Kerala exhibitors who can make treble the profits and so you did is for the interests of the industry. The best line would  be We are not willing to stick our necks for you exhibitors. Antony who heads some trade bodies should also ask all those who gave films to OTT and TV channels to throw the notices they got into the place it deserves to be.  in contrast Anto Joseph at least took permission before putting out his film Kilometeres on TV.

Central cancels TN 100 % theater occupancy - Kerala Theaters will not open if to pay ET

 

The Central Govt has written to the TN State Govt that it has not relaxed the 50% norm for theater occupancy in its new guidelines and that as per a SC order, all States are bound to go by the MHA directive with regard to lockdown restrictions. With 50% occupancy, Master release in TN will be a bad business proposition. Meanwhile Kerala Kerala Film Chamber decided to not open theaters with 50% occupancy and still pay Entertainment tax. Thus Master release in TN and Kerala remains in doubt.

In a retaliatory move by Kerala Exhibitors to Mohanlal- Antony Perumbavoor combo selling Drishyam 2 to OTT and facilitating a full wide release of Vijay's Master which is said to be distributed by friends close to Lal- Prithiviraj combo, it has got Kerala  Film Chamber to announce that only if State Govt waive off ET tax will it release Master or any film with 50% occupancy.

The office bearers of the Kerala theater owners' association said that opening theaters with 50 per cent capacity and paying entertainment tax is not a feasible option. The government has also fixed the timing for screening movies from 9 am to 9 pm, which is not acceptable to the theater owners as they feel that late night shows draw maximum customers. 

Details of BJP Pongal harvest - Jallikattu fest in Chennai

 

Coming Pongal ,will Amit Shah harvest Rajinikanth- Alagiri – Vijay father SAC support ? . For one, Rajinikanth has planned a great escape from Chennai before January 14^th. Singapore Hospital has told him to have a check up at the US Medical facility. On Pongal  day, Thuglak magazine once edited by Late Cho, holds  its anniversary function. Now the magazine is run by RSS ideologue Gurumurthy. This  year Amit Shah is the Chief Guest .Every year Rajinikanth used to attend the function and Cho would throw broad hints about the actor coming to politics. Gurumurthy who kept on repeating about the actor coming to support BJP as he was inclined to spiritual politics had to beat around the bush after the Superstar cited bad health and backed out.

Amit Shah was  to have presided over the aligning of Alagiri, the prodigal son of  Late DMK Chieftain Karunanidhi with BJP  in the previous visit to the city. He was disappointed. Now the disappointment is more that Rajini too has flown the cage. In a master move scripted by Gurumurthy, Rajini – Alagiri and Amit Shah would share the platform at the Thuglak function. Add to this SAC ,the rebellious father  of Actor Vijay would join them. BJP TN unit cannot hope for anything more.

SAC who converted the fan clubs of his son into a political party was publicly humiliated. Vijay asked his fans to keep away from the party and the guy who registered the party was hauled up by cops on some complaint given years back. Now the new party is APPA SAC MAKKAL IYAKKAM. ( Father People Movement).

Alagiri one point agenda is that brother Stalin should not be CM.  SAC agenda is to free his son from the clutches of `enemies’. Rajini says that he will serve the people through his fan clubs  but not as a political party. Amit Shah offers a perfect platform for this trio to achieve their goal.  The organizers are also planning to rope Vaiko, an ally of DMK to attend the seminar Vaiko, disgruntled that his party has been told to contest state poll on DMK symbol has many friends in BJP like Venkiah Naidu. A good harvest for BJP or will it be a dampner ?

Malayalam Film Guardian an interesting watch

 

Guardian

directed by Satish Paul released on Prime Reels movie apps platform on New Year, is one of the well scripted crime investigation story with a perfect casting, all round good performances and a perfect watch on such a platform. In scripting out a story where the audience is kept posted of the happenings of the murderer and the cops on the trail, a slight slip can bring the entire film crashing down. Here Satish does his job well to a great extent.

A medical doctor married a patient whom he treated for a suicide attempt due to love failure. Years later, the wife  gets a packet that has photos of her with her lover boy who ditched her. The motive is blackmail and amount is Rs 50 lakhs. The blackmailer is an unknown Tamilian. Instead of letting hubby know about it, she digs out her ex lover and trusts him to solve the mess. This appears to be the only wrong note in the story. Her trust in a man who betrayed her and keeping it a secret from her hubby who has accepted her with open arms is  hard to digest. Such judgmental errors should have been backed by any behavioral traits. This kind of flaw crops up again when the hubby who comes to know that his wife is blackmailed for her past , does not take her in confidence to fight the common enemy.

Keeping this apart, the way the hubby goes about scripting the death of the ex lover and leaving the cops to accept the evidence planted by him to accept that it was the dead man’s accomplice who was responsible is brilliant. Sijoy Varghese as the SP and Saiju Kurup as the hubby are the main stay of the film. Mia does not much scope to emote as she is in a role of a new IPS appointee in awe of the SP. Nayana Elsa  does fit the bill as the wife. Shiyas Kareem ( Bigg Boss fame) has not much as he gets bumped off much early in the proceedings. Director’s knowledge of engineering is put to clever use in the scripting.

The detailed explanation by the SP to the newly appointed IPS gal about methods of investigation seems to be funny as he says what every cop worth his salt would know and nothing earth shaking. The SIT could have  probed the locals as it takes place in a one horse town in a plantation and could have got the accomplice easily. All said and done a perfect watch on OTT.

 

Star Vijay's Start Music at 2nd , Sun 's Vanathai Polai at 3rd

Sun's Roja at 1  while Star Vijay's non fiction show Start Music has entered the 2nd slot usually held by fiction serials. The last episode of VJ Chitra episode broke TRP ratings.Star Vijay's Bharthi Kannamma  in 51st week TRP is  at 5th spot with Vannathe Pola at 3rd and Pandian Stores  at 4th.. 

Sun has removed director of Anbe Vaa as it has slided to 10th spot and two Zee Tamil serials have jumped to 8&9th spot. The new director who has directed the same channel's Kanmani has not done any wonders. The earlier director was creative head of Sa re Ga Ma serials. The feel good factor is removed and lot of negative woman charachters have come to the fore.

Star Vijay and Zee have every week has to coincide the second spot in BARC rating to the weekend movie telecast on Sun. This position even is retained if a dubbed movie from Telugu  is telecast. At southfilmy. blogspot. com , we have taken only the serials into account and excluded  the movie or reality show of Bigg Boss for rating top 5-10 Apart from producing blockbusters with top Tamil actors, Sun has paid advances to 30 films in various stages of production. KTV the mvie channel of Sun scores above Vijay Super , another movie channel. The reach of the weekend movie slot is keeping Sun TV rating in rural areas higher than urban or combined of rival channels.

ZEE which usually was pitted against Sun has now fallen behind Star Vijay. This has led to shakeup. It has decided to bring in new serials. The recent one being Suryavamsham and now has readied Thirumathy Hitlar, a remake of it’s Hindi serial. It has Ambika in key role with Keerthana, who acts in Agni Natchithram and a guest role in Roja serial of Sun TV along with  Amit Bhargava. It is expected for 6.30 pm slot against Abhiyum ...One time hearthrob Laila comes in Gokulathi Seethai which has choreographer Nanda in the lead.

Sun is keen to retain the supremacy in 8 PM slot with PU . Vijay brings back season 2 of COOK WITH COMALI, at 6.30 PM on weekends. Celebrities who are cooking experts will be paired with celebrities who are cooking disasters on this non-stop fun filled show.The show will feature prominent names such as actress Shakila, Baba Baskar, Madurai Muthu, Ashwin, Dharsha Gupta, Pavithra Lakshmi, Kadaikutty Singam Deepa and Kanni.The cooking partner are Pugazh, Bala, Shivangi, Manimegalai, Sharath, Sunitha,VJ Parvathi, Tiktok Shakthi. Most of the comalis are from the previous season.

Mohanlal avoids competition with Master for Prithviraj

 Did Mohanlal- Antony Perumbavoor make a mistake in agreeing to releasing `Drishyam 2’  on Amazon Prime when theaters in Kerala opens on January 5th ?. The trade circles say that Antony did the right thing as on many counts the decision is a wise one. The occupancy capacity allowed is 50% as per COVID norms. This coupled with the release of Vijay’s Master on Jan 13^th on a wide scale in Kerala will hit both the films badly as screens will be divided. Was the decision to avoid a face-off with Master due to Prithviraj buying the Kerala distribution ?

Drishyam was a blockbuster hit and remade in Tamil ( Papanassan with Kamal Haasan), Telugu ( Venkatesh) and Hindi( Ajay Devgn). The sequel with the same star cast and director is no doubt a crowd puller in Kerala as the audience expect to see how the two children , now grown-up face the threat from the past. The teaser has raised the expectation bar as the views are phenomenal.

Trade circles say that a Lal film cannot be bought by distributors and shown at 50% occupancy. The time taken to recover the money with profits will be double the time taken in normal times. By this time, pirated version will start streaming on online sites and kill further business. Added to this, Vijay is the most liked Tamil hero in Kerala and Master will divide theaters especially in the Districts along the Kerala- Tamil Nadu border . This will cut into the Drishyam 2 business. Whereas Master which is a dubbed film with no  competition, can take as many as theaters possible and practically give the distributor the effect of a 100% capacity.

Antony Perumbavoor was able to clinch the deal with Amazon as the budget was medium and the money offered was what he would have made in normal times. Sources say that the satellite rights are with the producer. Yet another reason is that actor Prithviraj who acquired the Master ‘s  Kerala distribution is a close friend of Lal – Antony combo. Film trade circles were told that after the local body elections, State will announce the opening of theaters. Due to election protocols, the outcome of theater – officials on exemption from building tax and power bill levied during COVID times could not be made public.

With COVID cases daily hovering at close to 5000 per day, it has to be seen whether the public will patronize cinema halls in Kerala. Master would be a test for other distributors to understand the new normal. Master is distributed by Listin Stepen of Magic Frames in Travancore area and Fortune films in Cochin- Malabar area.  Said Mohanlal- “We know viewers have waited patiently for the sequel – ‘Drishyam 2’. It is a labour of love, we hope to rise to the expectations of our die-hard fans. So sit back and enjoy from the safety of your homes with your family and loved ones,” Written and directed by Jeetu Joseph, Drishyam 2 also stars Meena, Siddique, Asha Sharath, Murali Gopy, Ansiba, Esther, and Saikumar.

 

Did Mohanlal- Antony Perumbavoor make a mistake in agreeing to releasing `Drishyam 2’  on Amazon Prime when theaters in Kerala opens on January 5th ?. The trade circles say that Antony did the right thing as on many counts the decision is a wise one. The occupancy capacity allowed is 50% as per COVID norms. This coupled with the release of Vijay’s Master on Jan 13^th on a wide scale in Kerala will hit both the films badly as screens will be divided.

Drishyam was a blockbuster hit and remade in Tamil ( Papanassan with Kamal Haasan), Telugu ( Venkatesh) and Hindi( Ajay Devgn). The sequel with the same star cast and director is no doubt a crowd puller in Kerala as the audience expect to see how the two children , now grown-up face the threat from the past. The teaser has raised the expectation bar as the views are phenomenal.

Trade circles say that a Lal film cannot be bought by distributors and shown at 50% occupancy. The time taken to recover the money with profits will be double the time taken in normal times. By this time, pirated version will start streaming on online sites and kill further business. Added to this, Vijay is the most liked Tamil hero in Kerala and Master will divide theaters especially in the Districts along the Kerala- Tamil Nadu border . This will cut into the Drishyam 2 business. Whereas Master which is a dubbed film with no  competition, can take as many as theaters possible and practically give the distributor the effect of a 100% capacity.

Antony Perumbavoor was able to clinch the deal with Amazon as the budget was medium and the money offered was what he would have made in normal times. Sources say that the satellite rights are with the producer. Yet another reason is that actor Prithviraj who acquired the Master ‘s  Kerala distribution is a close friend of Lal – Antony combo. Film trade circles were told that after the local body elections, State will announce the opening of theaters. Due to election protocols, the outcome of theater – officials on exemption from building tax and power bill levied during COVID times could not be made public.

With COVID cases daily hovering at close to 5000 per day, it has to be seen whether the public will patronize cinema halls in Kerala. Master would be a test for other distributors to understand the new normal. Master is distributed by Listin Stepen of Magic Frames in Travancore area and Fortune films in Cochin- Malabar area.  Said Mohanlal- “We know viewers have waited patiently for the sequel – ‘Drishyam 2’. It is a labour of love, we hope to rise to the expectations of our die-hard fans. So sit back and enjoy from the safety of your homes with your family and loved ones,” Written and directed by Jeetu Joseph, Drishyam 2 also stars Meena, Siddique, Asha Sharath, Murali Gopy, Ansiba, Esther, and Saikumar.