Thani Oruvan - Reasons for Jayam Ravi and Raja's emotional speech

During Thani Oruvan success meet, both Jayam Ravi and Mohan Raja could not control their tears due to humongous positive response the movie was able to garner from everywhere. Here are some background insights on what director Raja and Jayam Ravi had to go through prior to movie's release.

1. Yuvan Shankar Raja Out; HipHop Tamizha In 

Yuvan was the first choice to compose music for the movie. Yuvan was paid the advance to compose the music of Thani Oruvan. But Yuvan was not in mood to deliver the songs and caused indefinite delays. The director had to reluctantly switch to HipHop Thamizha knowing very well the loss in market value of the movie.

2. Nayantara's tantrums on the set

The entire crew of Thani Oruvan was surprised to see Nayantara's tantrums on the sets and all the trouble Director Raja had to undergo. Nayantara refused to act in one additional song, which was not shot, due to numerous difference of opinions that Nayantara had with the director. At the preview show, it is believed that Nayantara apologized to Jayam Raja for creating trouble and got back to friendly terms after seeing movie's response.

3. Production budget overshoots

The movie's budget was initially planned to be Rs.15 Crores including Jayam Ravi and Raja's combined salary of Rs.6 Crores. The movie budget surpassed Rs. 20 Crores due to delays and budget over-run. During the last leg of the movie, Jayam Ravi and Raja had to forgo majority of the salary to complete the movie. 

4. Last movie on film roll

Thani Oruvan will go down the history of Tamil cinema as the last mainstream movie shot in film. This drastic shift from film to digital happened at break-neck speed, all within 3 years. The film processing labs were waiting for Thani Oruvan to complete so they could decommission and retire the processing equipment. This put pressure on Thani Oruvan to switch to digital or complete the shooting.

5. Sun Pictures backed out of contract

Sun Pictures had signed the contract to buy the distribution rights for Rs. 20 Crores more than a year ago. After series of failures by Jayam Ravi and negative talks that existed about Thani Oruvan in the industry, Sun Pictures backed out by voiding the contract a month before release. AGS was able to convince Sun to retain the satellite contracts for Rs. 6 Crores and went ahead with theatrical release on their own with minimal expectations of recovering the production costs.

Challenges turn in to blessing in disguise

All the above challenges worked out to be blessing in disguise for Thani Oruvan in hindsight. It was believed the movie would have followed a standard 5-song template if Yuvan had done the music and Nayanthara had co-operated to shoot for additional song. If Sun Pictures had not backed-out, AGS would not have released it on their own. Sun Pictures' loss is AGS gain as the movie is turning out to be a blockbuster and expected to collect more than Rs.50 Crores in gross revenue based on its current momentum. 

Thani Oruvan