Ponniyin Selvan 2 is director Mani Ratnam's most ambitious movie yet.
Filmmaker Mani Ratnam's magnum opus Ponniyin Selvan 2 is the most-awaited film event of the year for fans of Tamil cinema worldwide. The movie is all set to arrive in the cinema on April 28. Bankrolled by Lyca Productions, the digital streaming rights of the movie lies with Amazon Prime Video. And the final part of the epic saga will be made available for streaming on the platform by early June.
Ponniyin Selvan film series is the most ambitious filmmaking attempt in Ratnam's career. He has been dreaming of adapting the beloved Tamil novel Ponniyin Selvan, penned by iconic writer Kalki for the big screen, since the late 1980s. In the last four decades, Ratnam came so close to taking this movie to the floor. However, his efforts didn't materialize owing to shortcomings in filmmaking technology and frankly, the Indian movie market was not ready.
By Ratnam's own admission, it all changed following the massive success of director SS Rajamouli's Baahubali 1 and 2. Even though he had long considered the idea of splitting the novel into a two-part movie to capture its sheer narrative vastness, he wasn't sure, how the audiences would respond to such an attempt. But, when Rajamouli showed that the audience will be willing to watch the same movie in two instalments , it resolved Ratnam's all confusion.
"I want to thank SS Rajamouli. If Baahubali was not made. And not made in two parts. Ponniyin Selvan would not have been made. So we owe him a big thanks. I’ve called him, met him and told him this. And I want to say here that it created the path for me to be able to mount Ponniyin Selvan in two parts. It gave confidence to the entire industry to do historical (projects) and he opened a huge passage for a lot of Indian history to be converted into films," Rajamouli said during the promotion of Ponniyin Selvan 2.
For his dream project, Ratnam managed to assemble a dream star cast, including Vikram, Karthi, Jayam Ravi, Aishwarya Rai, Trisha, Aishwarya Lekshmi, Sobhita Dhulipala, Prakash Raj, Jayaram, Prabhu, R. Sarathkumar, R. Parthiban, Rahman, Lal and Vikram Prabhu. And Oscar-winner AR Rahman scored the music for both parts.
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