Alright, here goes. There is a Malayalam movie that was made on a princely budget of Rs 32 crores, collected a whopping 1.5 crore in domestic collections on the first day, and have recovered its entire production costs and a whopping profit in digital rights unheard of in Indian cinema since its release on October 16, 2009, quietly. A revolution that commenced in God’s own country is slowly gathering gravitas in a way that is going to surprise the pants out of the self – styled trade pundits who tend to look further down south of the Vindhyas with calculated disdain. Pazhassi Raja, the multilingual biopic based on the life and times of Keralavarma Pazahassi Raja, directed by Hariharan and scripted by the legendary MT Vasudevan Nair would have to be the most prestigious and the costliest movie ever mounted on the silver screen from God’s own country. Shackled and restricted, as with any other regional movie industry, to a market base that is limited to its language, the Malayalam movie industry has been stretching its limits to accommodate the rising costs of production and the returns. Its only saving grace that has been the rising demand and outflow of technical talent to other regional movie making projects and the remake rights of its commercial releases to mainly Bollywood.There has also been a rising trend in the sale of digital rights of the movies to TV and the web, which has also slowly started making tidy profits for the production houses.
And it is in this existing scenario that this officially unconfirmed report of the season’s biggest commercial hit and and an equally critically acclaimed movie has shot into prominence for a reason far removed than its already deserving collaborations on its technical front. Pazhassi Raja has been in the news for its one-of-a-kind collaboration of the country’s best talent and the local ones in a project with a budget unheard of in Malayalam movie production. The team of MT Vasudevan Nair, Hariharan,Ilaiyaraja, Resool Pookkuttya and Bharath Mammooty can only mean a phenomenal movie that will shake the foundations of Malayalam cinema.
And the domestic box – office has never rejoiced like it has in its first week collection which ran into Rs.1.5 crores on the initial day of its release from theaters in Kerala alone, which is a record. Peanuts, if you consider the Big National picture, but a windfall when Kerala is concerned.
Asianet picked up its Malayalam satellite rights for a whopping Rs. 2.6 Crore. But what comes next is what sends shivers down our timbers. According to our sources, the international digital rights has been sold to HBO for a whopping Rs.60 crore.
Aamir Khan’s Ghajini till now held the highest payout with Rs 22 crore, which would make Pazhassi Raja THE HIGHEST GROSSER IN TERMS OF OVERSEAS DIGITAL RIGHTS IN INDIAN CINEMA.
Not bad for a movie which was built on a budget of around Rs. 32 crore – the highest in Malayalam Cinema but short change when it comes to Bollywood.
Pazhassi Raa is enroute to being the top – grosser for 2009 as things stand today in Malayalam releases, and if the above is confirmed, will also make it the phenomenon of 2009.
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