After his ongoing project Vettaiyan, actor Rajinikanth will be seen in Thalaivar 171, the title of which is all set to be revealed at 6 PM today. Thalaivar 171 movie marks the maiden collaboration of director Lokesh Kanagaraj with 'Superstar' Rajinikanth and Sun Pictures production banner, and all eyes are on what kind of title the filmmaker has chosen. 

Lokesh Kanagaraj has five full length feature films to his directorial credit, and all his movies have a single word title for starters. The filmmaker has also been observed to title his movie after the central theme/characters, as seen in Maanagaram (2017), and Kaithi (2019), Master (2021), Vikram (2022), and Leo (2023).  

The director has previously commented about the same in an interview stating, "I want to be bang on the money (with the film titles)..If we do that, there will be no diversion. If you look at Kaithi (the movie), no matter the perspective, the lorry and the (released prisoner's) handcuffs will what keep coming to your mind. The working title of Kaithi was Maanagara Kaaval (after the 1991 Vijayakanth starrer). I changed the title because I wanted it to be crisp and clear.."

Lokesh has also said that the shorter titles help them make even the title fonts memorable. "Maanagaram title font had a city styled in it, Kaithi obviously had handcuffs. It (short titles) helps the audience register such details easily". The director credits producer SR Prabhu of Dream Warrior Pictures, in the process behind his title deciding factors. 

Lokesh says that SR Prabhu, who produced both Maanagaram and Kaithi, told him during his first movie, that a film title should be such that a common man travelling by public transport, should be able to remember a title from the promotional posters, which are miniscule in size compared to flex boards or hoardings.

SR Prabhu passed him the wisdom that the microseconds a film poster comes in contact with a person travelling by bus, is the time allotted for the film title to capture the audience's attention (hence short and crisp titles work better). With time, watches, gold and blood being a major theme across the material released so far, it remains to be seen what title awaits to be revealed for Thalaivar 171.