Masilamani and Sun Pictures- Changing phase of Tamil Cinema- for better or worse?
I am just back from a late night show of Masilamani- a recent Tamil release. For a movie into the 4th week of its release there was more than 80 % occupancy. At a large single screen theatre like Kasi in Chennai which is regarded as a collection center, this certainly means that the movie is a safe proposition. The movie has a close connection to last year’s surprise hit- Kadalil Vizhunden (KV from hereon). Not only is the lead pair the same (Nakul and Sunaina), this one again is a Sun Pictures release. KV was the first movie to be released by Sun Pictures, the film division of Sun TV network and emboldened by its success they have gone on to buy over and release a spate of movies like Thenavattu, Dindigul Sarathy, Padikathavan, Ayan etc.
The success of KV itself could be a case study in isolation. While the anthem song – Nakka Mukka had already become popular, the movie was in the cans for a while. Starring virtually the unknown pair of Nakul and Sunaina, there wasn’t much going for the movie- i.e till Sun Pictures took over the movie and decided to make it their first venture. What was then unleashed was the marketing might of the Sun T.V network. All of a sudden the T.V audience was bombarded with promos of various kinds for KV. No, they did not stick to the earlier trailer which was floating on air for some time earlier. They unleashed a series of different promos of various time durations with sharp focus on the selling points.
In fact so impressed was Sun Pictures with the response to Nakka Mukka that they even made the cast and crew shoot another version of the song which wasn’t earlier there in the movie. It also helped that there were other songs which were also quite good (like thozhiya en kadhaliya ) and Vijay Antony’s songs and the lead pair got well recognized. Whether you were watching news, a daily soap or a movie, any interruption would be greeted with a KV promo and lo and behold the people flocked to the theatres out of curiosity. Thankfully the product was reasonably entertaining and thus a successful business model was created. Buoyed by the success of KV, Sun Pictures announced that they were there in the market for keeps.
By that time the then big players- Pyramid Saimira and Ayangaran were already facing the heat and Sun Pictures was more than happy to capitalize on the situation. Things turned a complete circle later on as Shankar’s mega project- Endhiran changed hands from Ayangaran to Sun Pictures. After KV Sun Pictures literally went on a buying spree and picked up movies for release. Whether it was a small movie like Dindigul Sarathy or a mass movie like Ayan, they showed that they were adept in handling the project. They even went on to release an English movie- Outlander all over South India in both English and the regional languages.
While their efforts at releasing and marketing the movie is commendable when we look at it from the view point of a KV or a Dindigul Sarathy, it becomes extremely irritating to accept carpet bombing on air in the form of promos for movies like a Thee. Dindigul Sarathy (a remake of Sreenivasan’s Malayalam movie Vadakku Nokki Yanthram) would have definitely struggled for a release considering it had comedian Karunas in the lead but Sun Pictures ensured that not only did the movie get a good release, it was also well promoted. Thenavattu saw Jeeva attempting an action movie for the first time and while critics blasted the movie and said Jeeva should rather concentrate on doing movies like Ram and Katradhu Tamil (leaving the mass movies to Vijay and Ajith), the marketing of the movie seemed to work and the movie was a success.
The heavy duty promotion of Ayan has been a big factor in ensuring the spectacular success of the movie. So once again with Masilamani they have been doing what they’ve been reasonably successful with. Expecting just a regular masala movie (coming out very clearly from the promos) I went on to watch Masilamani for the heck of it but came out both disappointed and confused. The movie directed by RMR Manohar has nothing great in terms of a plot. Its all about Masilamani (Nakul) fondly called Masi by all and he is the typical do-gooder. The heroine Divya (Sunaina) is a dance teacher and while Masi falls in love with her at first sight somehow whenever she sees him, he comes across as a ruffian to her due to circumstances.
That’s when Masi comes up with an alter ego called Mani who is the opposite of what Masi is and the rest of the movie goes completely in predictable fashion. Music by D.Imman is of the typical variety and couple of songs have become reasonably popular. The movie has a stock comedy track (no connection to the main story) with M.S.Bhaskar and Karunas. So obviously the promos are all focusing on the songs and the comedy scenes. While the movie is not on the lines of a Villu or a Thoranai it certainly is nothing great to talk about.
This gives me a major cause of concern all of a sudden. With the kind of financial and political muscle that Sun Pictures has they are only going to be producing and releasing a lot many more movies. While I salute their efforts to release and promote a small movie like Dindigul Sarathy, I am also happy to see them push a big movie like Ayan. After all the money made from an Ayan can be used to fund many more smaller films. But what I’m not in favor of is having movies like Thenavattu, Thee and now Masilamani thrown down our throats.
As a keen follower of Tamil cinema I do welcome the advent of a big player in the industry but I’m watching them carefully and curiously to see how they are headed. Let’s see what unfolds in the days to come.
Tags: Ayan, Dindigul Sarathy, Kadhalil Vizhunden, Nakul, Outlander, Padikathavan, Sun Pictures, Sunaina, Vijay Antony
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
Sethu,
The quality of a final movie can rarely be predicted, no? I mean if it is a bad movie, it may fail. If it is good it will rake in moolah. What Sun might be trying to do is to break even, even for a mediocre movie. Quite sensible, considering they have put money in it. When there are hundreds of complaints, here in PFC even about movies not being aggressively promoted, the statement of pushing something down your throat becomes rather weird. In the end, it is you who has to make a judgement from the promos, if the movie will be good or not. Promos though, will remain. Maybe if a movie doesn’t do well, Sun may look at what went wrong and try to correct it for the future. In the end it seems like a win-win situation. More chances of smaller films to get noticed, and more joy for the audience as someone is ready to put money and belief in a different kind of movie.
@sethu :
You saw it in Kasi theatre is it .. Whats the general mass opinion like ? Was it like the audience were gasping and groaning thruout the movie and happy that it finally got over or was it well received ?
@ Gopi-
Fiirst things first- if someone puts money into a movie obviously they should go all out to recover their money and so if this includes promotion- so be it.But in case of Sun Pictures I fail to understand whats the need to pick up any movie that comes their way.And I’ve clearly mentioned in my post that I admire them for encouraging small films and even appreciate making their money from big movies.But that does not mean they need to pick up just any movie.Their team usually has inside info on all the projects and I wont accept that they did not know if the movie was bad.And I’m no where saying promoting a movie is bad.But why release a bad movie & then spend air time to promote it?Also this year- 2009 alone so far Sun has released 6 movies already so the novelty factor of their promotion wont last for long if they keep having regular releases.So lets wait & see whats in store.
@ VJ-
yes indeed I saw it at Kasi.Most of the audience seemed to be having a decent time – didnt see anyone complaining except for the people with me.
Unfortunately sad but true.Thats why I’m sure the movie is not a losing proposition.
I agree sethu, that novelty factor will wear off soon.
I think they will go YRF way.
@cinemausher- not sure if they’ll go the YRF way, we need to give them some time and play the waiting game so that we are sure.But can you imagine the scale of promotion they would come up with for Endhiran? It would be mind boggling for sure!!!
Yes hopefully, i read somewhere Rajni has agreed to promote the movie thru Sun tv.
Have to see how much they will reveal in promos as Shankar’s movie are close guarded secret.
I t would be interesting to see if they will release it in hindi how will they promote it.
Not only will Endhiran release in Hindi, it will also release in Telugu,English and probably a few foreign languages too( no I’m not joking ). Yes Shankar’s movies are usually closely guarded till the release.So my guess is that they will make some 3-4 general promos which even the news channels will keep airing during the release
( remember Sivaji and Dasavatharam? ) and once the release happens, they would air the other promos.At a budget of 120 + crores they have to try a lot of means to recover the money spent and then make profits.
Yes may be i have an idea why they dub it in marathi,with Rajni’s voice.
It would be interesting if they will have english version, by they do you have any idea why Sivaji was not dubbed in Hindi and released.
Ah! Marathi would be cool- Rajni can easily dub his own dialogues.English version would be there in all likelihood.In case of Sivaji- they were completely focussed on the South markets and wanted the movie to be a trendsetter.To be frank even the makers ( AVM ) did not anticipate the kind of hype that the movie would generate nationally.So initially they were happy to see the movie getting a wide release across India.Later on they did plan to dub it in Hindi & release it but I guess they just lost interest.
But with all the Hindi movie channels on T.V showing an abundance of South Indian movies dubbed in Hindi, it wont be surprising to see Sivaji in hindi soon.Also Chandramukhi’s dubbed version in Hindi was released nearly 3 years later.So lets see if they do something.
If the audiences enjoyed the movie , then its again class vs mass . you cant do anything about it.The reason Sun tv is promoting dud movies like Masilamani is because they are catering to the audience that watches Sun tv. The families who watch serials on suntv and not only the news. So, they wanna distribute , if I may use the much abused word ‘kudumba padams’, however horrible the y may be.
Till now, watching cinema in theatres has been a youngster thing.They wanna break that much to our chagrin.I hate it as well when I see Masilamani mentioned on the Sun news ! But, whenever someone succeeds by hook or crook they are always whiners.It turns out that we have become the whiners this time.
It may be this or because of Sun TV’s bad foresight in buying the expensive Endhiran.So,only if they make money by hyping such dud movies can they prepare themselves if Endhiran bombs.
Either way, the motive is MONEY. And,it looks like Sun Pictures hasn’t got enough of it.