Unni Mukundan says Marco will not work on OTT: ‘I’m going to…’
Marco star Unni Mukundan also addresses the Haneef Adeni directorial being too disturbing for some audiences.
Jan 14, 2025
Unni Mukundan in and as Marco
Malayalam actor Unni Mukundan’s latest, Marco, had divided audiences sharply – while some celebrated the content, others were left feeling too disturbed by the extent of the violence unleashed onscreen. With the latter set of viewers, Unni says that they didn’t criticize the film, but were only troubled by the intensity of the action. “They didn’t write off the film. They said it’s a good film, but that it hit them hard and that they could not handle it,” said the actor speaking to Anmol Jamwal, adding that he got similar feedback from members of his family as well.
Unni Mukundan on why Marco won't work on OTT
Unni sees it as a win-win situation. Disturbing the audience is also a part of the entertainment space, he reckons. “I don’t think Marco will do any good on OTT; I’m very clear about that. I’m going to get ripped apart, for, say, the logic, etc. Certain kind of cinema is designed for theatres, wherein I want you to cut off from the real world. I don’t want to belittle the intelligence of the audience saying that the violence onscreen has now influence them. I’m just saying that the audience is mature. It’s the intensity of the scenario onscreen that’s affecting them; they are not saying we are bad people,” he explains.
Marco is a spin-off of the Malayalam film Michael, in which Unni’s character was one of the antagonists. Doing a film as action and violence-driven as Marco was part of a larger plan, says the actor. After doing family entertainers throughout, one more of which, Get Set Baby, will be released shortly, Unni says that since 2018, he has been working towards taking his career forward in a certain way, wherein he feels that he’s in control.
“At the time, I thought of people who can handle action movies and director Haneef Adeni fit the bill perfectly; we’d worked together on Michael. He came up with a different movie idea, but for some reason, I felt drawn to this character of Marco, as I felt that I wanted to do could be explored through him, because he is a bad guy, which gives me the license to go haywire. If I then get a good storyline, I thought I could build a franchise that I can take across to the international market,” Unni says explaining how Marco came to be.
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