Dulquer Salmaan's King of Kotha digital, satellite rights sold for this jaw-dropping record sum?

Dulquer Salmaan's King of Kotha, directed by Abhilash Joshiy, seems to setting records even before its release. The movie has reportedly done the highest pre-release business in the Malayalam industry.

According to reports, King of Kotha, which is also produced by Dulquer's Wayfarer Films, has been made on a budget of around Rs 50 crore. But even before its theatrical release in August, it seemed to come close to table profit with its digital, audio and satellite rights being sold for about Rs 40 crore. Sony Music has paid close to Rs 5 crore for the audio rights of the film, as per unconfirmed reports.

Mohanlal and Jeethu Joseph's Drishyam 2 had held the record for the highest price for digital rights in Malayalam. The movie was a direct to OTT release on Amazon Prime Video in 2021. Zee Studios is co-producing the movie with Dulquer's Wayfarer Films. It's not clear whether the film will be streaming on ZEE5 and Zee Keralam, or will have multiple OTT platforms.

The teaser of the movie was unveiled last week and within 12 hours of its release, it broke the record for the highest number of views for a Malayalam promo on a single day. The teaser garnered 9.6 million views in just 24 hours and Dulquer had expressed his joy through his social media pages. 

In the teaser, Dulquer is hailed as the 'king' of a fictional place called Kotha and the sequences promise an action packed gangster-drama. 

The movie is hugely anticipated by the actor's fans as well as the industry, and Dulquer is expected to go all out to promote it across the country. The film, scripted by Abhilash N Chandran, features Aishwarya Lekshmi, Nyla Usha, Chemban Vinod, Anikha Surendran, Shabeer Kallarakal, Prasanna and Gokul Suresh. 

King of Kotha has Nimish Ravi, who is known for his work in Rorschach and Kurup, as its cinematographer with Shyam Sasidharan and Jakes Bejoy as its editor and composer, respectively. Its teaser's background score was also used in the post by Chennai Super Kings to wish MS Dhoni on his birthday recently.