Barroz: Jijo Punnoose reveals Antony Perumbavoor thought of shelving Mohanlal film due to Bro Daddy, Monster

My Dear Kuttichathan director Jijo Punnoose’s blog about the evolution of his dream project Barroz: Guardian of D’Gama’s Treasure have led to some startling revelations of how the project took shape and then was changed entirely during the pandemic, with Mohanlal himself rewriting the script to “satisfy his fan base”.

Jijo, who is currently busy putting together another mega project Chekon, in a blog, explained in detail how he had visualized the story of Barroz, to ensure that there wouldn’t be any copyright infringement when he decided to resurrect the original film he had in mind.

Also read: Split in Barroz team? Jijo says Mohanlal rewrote script akin to Lucifer, Pulimurugan to ‘satisfy his fan base’ 

The filmmaker, who was attached to Barroz was its scriptwriter and assisted Mohanlal in his directorial debut, wrote that the team had initially started with the idea of making Barroz as per Jijo’s plan. However, a week into the shoot in April 2021, most of the team fell ill due to COVID-19 and Kerala had enforced its second lockdown.

But once the lockdown rules were eased, the film’s production company, Aashirvad Cinemas, wasn’t too keen to immediately resume work on Barroz. The firm “seemed to have migrated into OTT filmmaking” by the fall of 2021, wrote Jijo. The veteran director also says that the company had four such productions including Bro Daddy, Alone and Monster, being shot in locations outside Kerala.

“Meant for a 3D theatrical release, our film Barroz seemed a non-viable option,” he explains. “In fact, there were talks about shelving the project! From Hyderabad (film Bro Daddy location) Mr. Antony's message was given to us to dismantle Treasure Cellar Sets at Navodaya Studio here at Kakkanad, Kochi, rather than waste time waiting.”

Also read: Mohanlal’s Barroz trailer to be released along with James Cameron’s Avatar 2 in theatres? 

Jijo, however, says that it was due to Mohanlal’s initiative that the project was revived. In “a prudent move to save the project”, Jijo says that Mohanlal along with Rajeevkumar rewrote the script, which Jijo himself had revised 22 times to satisfy the superstar and its producer Antony Perumbavoor, for viable completion of the film in and around Kochi.

The filmmaker further clarified that the focus of the new script now was to entertain the Malayali family film audience and Mohanlal’s character Barroz’s prominence was more compared to the previous version where a young girl named Isabella was the central character.