PremiumEmpuraan director Prithviraj Sukumaran on what fuelled him: ‘Mohanlal and Anthony Perumbavoor had...’
Empuraan director Prithviraj Sukumaran: Back in 2018, Lucifer was the biggest Malayalam film and people wondered why producer Anthony Perumbavoor entrusted Prithviraj with that responsibility.
Mohanlal in Lucifer
Last Updated: 03.44 PM, Mar 18, 2025
When the Malayalam film Lucifer was made in 2018, it was, reportedly, the biggest in terms of budget – Rs 30 crore - and scale at the time. The film was written by Murali Gopi, who had a string of critically-acclaimed movies to his credit, and to be directed by Prithviraj Sukumaran, who, although an accomplished actor, had not worked behind the camera. Naturally, producer Anthony Perumbavoor’s decision to go ahead with this combo, in a film led by Mohanlal, raised a lot of eyebrows and the filmmaker got a lot of calls from ‘well-wishers’ wondering why he thought Prithviraj would be able to pull it off and make a commercially-viable product.
Prithviraj: Anthony Perumbavoor and Mohanlal never had an iota of doubt
During the promotions of L2 Empuraan, the second part of the Lucifer trilogy, which releases in theatres on March 27, 2025, Prithviraj spoke to Galatta Plus about the conversations in the Malayalam film industry at the time. “It was said that maybe Prithviraj is also a filmmaker and he’s got that thought process going on. But that’s not good enough to be trusting someone with a Rs 30 crore film. The conviction that Anthony Perumbavoor and Mohanlal showed, was a fuel for me,” said Prithviraj, adding that through the making of Lucifer, there was not even a single moment when either Anthony or Mohanlal had even an iota of doubt about his capabilities as a filmmaker.
Prithviraj adds that whatever he wanted for the film was given to him with no questions asked. The actor-filmmaker cites the example of the tail-end of Lucifer that he wanted to shoot at an air terminal for private chartered flights, for which he’d got permission too. Unfortunately, though, the Dubai Film Commission rejected the script because of the narcotics mafia connection to the story. By then, the release date of Lucifer had already been announced and Prithviraj needed to urgently find an alternative.
A friend then suggested St Petersburgh and Prithviraj headed there almost immediately to secure permission, telling Anthony and Mohanlal, to be ready to get on the next available flight to Russia, if he could spin it in 48 hours' time. While he was leaving for Russia, Anthony gave Prithviraj a credit card to use for whatever he needed while out there. Luckily, he was able to figure out the shoot location and permissions and got the team to fly out. “That’s the kind of trust they had on me, which is priceless for a filmmaker. I will forever be thankful for that and that is exactly the kind of trust that they had in me for L2 Empuraan also and I hope I live up to that,” says Prithviraj.