PremiumGautham Menon on Dominic and the Ladies’ Purse’s box-office collections: We could have gone ballistic like Vettaiyaadu Vilaiyaadu but...
Dominic and the Ladies’ Purse director Gautham Vasudev Menon talks about the obsession with box-office collections and how that never played a role in the case of the Mammootty, Sushmitha Bhat-starrer
Last Updated: 12.51 PM, Jan 24, 2025
Director Gautham Vasudev Menon’s latest movie Dominic and the Ladies’ Purse got off to a decent start at the Kerala box office on Thursday. Given that the film had Mammootty in the lead and was the hit filmmaker’s first Malayalam venture, it did have a certain hype going for it, which didn’t quite translate to numbers.
In a recent interview with OTTplay, Gautham had opened up with us about the current obsession of the box-office collection of a film and how that never played a part in the making of his latest investigative thriller, which also has Gokul Suresh, Sushmitha Bhat and Viji Venkatesh.
Gautham Menon: If numbers mattered, they wouldn’t have made Kaathal
“I am so thankful that I have Mammootty Kampany as the producers of this film. If we were talking about numbers, I don’t think they would have made films like Nanpakal Nerathu Mayakkam and Kaathal: The Core. I don’t think the numbers matter to them,” he said. “But, of course, you don’t want to lose money on a project and you also want the equation (between the producer and director) to continue. Somewhere, there is a yardstick based on the numbers.”
The filmmaker, whose previous hit was Vendhu Thanindhathu Kaadu in 2021, also said that he doesn’t let the box-office focus on a film dictate what the content of the film should be. “If you ask me personally, I don’t believe in numbers. I really hope it doesn’t affect creativity and while making this film, we didn’t think too much about that,” he said.
Gautham Menon: Could have gone ballistic with Dominic and the Ladies’ Purse
If the plan was to get as many audiences into theatres, then he would have done Dominic and the Ladies’ Purse differently, the director explained. “We didn’t go ballistic, as in, do a Vettaiyaadu Vilaiyaadu type of action sequences in this film. We could have done that to attract the front benchers to the screen. I think that’s the advantage, which I am boldly saying, of making this film in Malayalam because the audience doesn’t expect something like that. They just want to see a good, real-looking film. That’s why we didn’t go overboard with anything.”
Further on what went into making the investigative thriller, Gautham said that “it’s not a huge-budget production”. “We gave it what the scenes deserved and we happily spent on whoever or whatever we wanted; all the equipment was given to us. A lot of planning had also went to it, which ensured the film was finished in 45 days,” he explained.