Ram: Mohanlal, Trisha and Jeethu Joseph film’s OTT rights sold to this streaming platform for a whopping sum?

While there were rumours that Drishyam duo Mohanlal and Jeethu Joseph’s Ram won’t hit theatres till next year, recent reports suggest that the first instalment of the action-thriller duology is well on track for its initial release date of Onam in August 2023. The latest update, we hear, is that the makers of the duology have also sold their OTT rights to a leading platform for a whopping deal.

According to reports, the film’s OTT rights were snapped up by Amazon Prime Video, which had also bought the rights for the duo’s Drishyam 2. In 2020, when the streaming platform bought the rights for Drishyam, they had paid a record price, rumoured to be around Rs 20 crores – the highest for a Malayalam movie then. The streaming platform has reportedly paid a higher price for Ram’s OTT rights.

Also read: Exclusive! Mohanlal’s Ram had to be a duology as it wasn’t practical to make a 5-hour-long film: Jeethu Joseph 

Official confirmation on the deal is still awaited. Ram, however, is a pan-Indian film that also has Adil Hussain, Trisha Krishnan, Samyukhta Menon and Indrajith Sukumaran in pivotal roles. The movie has Mohanlal essaying the role of a globe-trotting investigative officer and has been shot in the UK, Tunisia, Morocco and a schedule planned in Israel.

Also read: Exclusive! Jeethu Joseph: Several locations for Mohanlal’s Ram were cancelled after Queen Elizabeth’s death 

In an earlier interview with OTTplay, Jeethu said that Mohanlal’s character in the film is someone “you could describe as pan-world”. “I had initially limited such a character to just one movie. But after the acceptance of Drishyam 2, the consequent expansion of Lal sir’s market and the delay of the film for about two years, I felt it could be done on a bigger canvas. That’s how we increased the scale,” said the filmmaker.

Both the movies have been shot simultaneously, but there “will be a considerable gap between the release of the two films”, said Jeethu. The film is also expected to be released in multiple languages.