Shivaji is like no other Indian Film
By: Settu Shankar
Wednesday, April 04, 2007
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'All the roads lead to Rome' is an old proverb. 'All the people's and the
media attention is only on Shivaji is the new proverb in south Indian cinema.
This is no exaggeration.The entire state of Tamil Nadu is going crazy about
Shivaji after the audio launch of the film. Young boys and college students
have been seen changing their hairstyles like Rajini's in the film immediately
after the release of some photographs from Shivaji. Many ardent fans of Rajini
purchased the CDs and cassettes with their own money and supplied them to
their neighbours free of cost! At the same time, some people sold the CDs in
black market for Rs.250 today as the demand was greater than the supply.
Nearly 80,000 CDs got sold out on the second day, and the sellers have
requested the production house to send another 1 lakh CDs to meet the
increasing demand.
According to the 'Music World' show room manager, people are prefering to
purchase CDs rather than cassettes. He told us that he has seen more crowd
today than on Monday when the audio was formally launched. AVM sources say
that its audio distribution wing has supplied nearly 5 lakhs audio CDs and
cassettes all over south India. They also say that there is an amazing
response for the audio in Mumbai as well. According to them, more than 38
thousand audio CDs were sold in Kerala only. This is for the very first time
that an audio in a different language has sold in the state in such a huge
number, they claimed.
CD Sellers of Chennai Ritchie Street, the whole sale audio marketers for the
entire south, told us that they had never seen such a high demand for a film's
audio in the past 25 years. Pradeep of Supreme audio said, "On Monday, I
opened my shop at 5 in the morning. When I reached there, there was a long
queue waiting to purchase the Shivaji audio in front my two shops. It was
quite unbelievable. One person, who had come there with a mini CD player,
listened to the songs on the spot. He distributed sweets to the gathering
there immediately after he felt satisfied with the Shivaji songs. This is
really amazing, and I have never experienced any thing like it. The whowle
country hasnt experienced anything like this. The super star has breathed a
new life into the audio market through his film Shivaji. There is no doubt
that Rajini has always ruled southern cinema and he is the real super star in
the country!"
Probably going withe present hype, AVM Productions has plans to bring out a
short film about the making of the film. No other Indian film has created so
much hype like Shivaji has done in India or abroad. This film will be an
unforgettable one for its producer AVM Saravanan, who is going to complete his
50th anniversary in film production. Before Shivaji, he has worked with the
Superstar in 8 films. Before this, none of his films have made excited him so
much neither has any of his films made him as proud as Shivaji has. In fact
Shivaji, alias Rajini, has given a new life to the legendary production house
on its 70th anniversary. Before the announcement of Shivaji, there was
distribution of the ownership rights of the AVM Studios between the AVM
brothers. AVM Saravanan got a lesser portion of the Studio premises. At this
critical situation, he gave away the entire rights of the Tamil films produced
under AVM banner to his younger brother AVM. Balasubramanian.
At a time when Saravanan was planning for some other projects to survive in
the industry, Rajini came forward to allot his prestigious call sheets. He
recommended Shankar's name to direct Shivaji. After the formal announcement of
this project, the entire industry was up and about. There are hundreds and
thousands of news, gossips, and debates doing the rounds about this film in
the media, as well as the public. It is Shivaji, which has kept online
journalists always in alert. For the first time in the world, some of the
portals 'released' the complete songs of the movie with lyric notes online.
But the curiosity for this film hasn't faded due to this leak. Infact, it has
helped a lot in the film's overseas popularity, in a different way.
Keeping all these facts in mind, AVM Saravanan has asked the director to shoot
a film on the making of Shivaji, simultaneously with the film. This film might
feature all the stars including the 'King of Southern Cinema' Rajini and the
director Shankar. Other technicians, including the incredible A.R. Rahman,
cameraman, lyricists, dance masters, stunt masters...will share their
unforgettable moments of association with Rajini and the film, Shivaji, in
this curtain-raiser. The crew has titled this as 'Making of Shivaji - The
Boss' and it will be of one hour in length. The CD and DVD of this short film
will be circulated to the press at the time of Shivaji preview. AVM has
planned to circulate the CDs to the outlets for sale, a after few days of the
release of the film.
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