Kathanar: Pre-production of Jayasurya and Rojin Thomas' Rs 100 Cr, 3D fantasy film begins

After helming the much-appreciated #Home, director Rojin Thomas and team have now begun the pre-production of his biggest project yet – Kathanar. The 3D fantasy movie, which has Jayasurya in the lead, is touted to be made on a budget of Rs 100 Cr, using the technology seen in Hollywood films such as Jungle Book and Lion King.

The pre-production work of the film has already begun and will use virtual production technology aided by full-body 3D scans for its characters.

While several movies using virtual production have already been announced in Malayalam the past year – including Prithviraj Sukumaran’s film with Gokulraj Bhaskar and RS Vimal’s Dharmarajya, the makers of Kathanar claim that theirs would be the first Malayalam movie to use the techniques of 200DSLR camera photogrammetry rig and Vicon-based infrared buped motion capture used in Disney’s live-action movies such as Jungle Book and Lion King.

The pre-production and shoot of Kathanar, which is based on the myth of the priest named Kadamattathachan who is believed to have possessed supernatural powers, is expected to be completed within a year and the movie will be released in seven languages, according to the makers.

In an earlier interview with OTTplay, Jayasurya had confirmed to us that the project was “very much on” despite the multiple delays due to the pandemic. “Rojin’s #Home, for instance, wasn’t made on a big budget but it managed to win everyone’s hearts. So, when the same director makes a film with a budget of Rs 75 Cr, it’s a huge deal. What we want is to make it on the level of a Hollywood movie such as Avatar. I took the film to him even before he began work on #Home because I knew he could pull it off; it was based on how he treated Phillips and the Monkey Pen,” he said.