Mani Ratnam, Shankar, Gautham Menon and top Tamil directors form production house for OTT content

The production company’s first film will be directed by Lokesh Kanagaraj,

Tamil directors backing the production house, Rain on Films

It was only a matter of time before top directors in Kollywood took the OTT plunge. After co-producing Netflix’s anthology Navarasa, Mani Ratnam has joined hands with top Tamil directors such as Shankar, Vetrimaaran, Gautham Vasudev Menon, Mysskin and AR Murugadoss to form a production company.

Named Rain On Films, the venture will mostly back films, web series and OTT originals and their first venture will be a feature film that will be directed by Kaithi and Master director Lokesh Kanagaraj.

According to reports, the aim for the production house backed by the stalwarts is to come up with a revenue model on par with Bollywood production houses such as Yash Raj Films and Dharma Productions that have also forayed into digital content, keeping in mind the immense potential.

The production house will have 10 Tamil directors including Poo Sasi, Vasantabalan, Balaji Shakthivel, Lingusamy and Kanagaraj with Vetrimaaran’s office serving as the chief operating hub for it, according to a report on DT Next.

Mani Ratnam, meanwhile, is currently busy with the shoot of Ponniyin Selvan in Hyderabad and will move to Bhopal for the final leg of the magnum opus, which has Vikram, Karthi, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Jayaram, Trisha, Sarathkumar and Aishwarya Lekshmi in lead roles. The ace director had made his OTT debut with Navarasa, which had nine major directors helming respective segments.

While Shankar is set to start filming with his pan-Indian film with Ram Charan and Kiara Advani, Kanagaraj is currently shooting Vikram in Karaikudi. The latter movie has Kamal Haasan in the lead and also has Fahadh Faasil, Vijay Sethupathi, Kalidas Jayaram and Narain as part of the cast.

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