Exclusive! Mohanlal’s Ram had to be a duology as it wasn’t practical to make a 5-hour-long film: Jeethu Joseph

A Mohanlal-Jeethu Joseph film is now not just an anticipated project among Malayalis. The success of Drishyam 2 has now got all eyes on the director’s next project Ram, which is next set to be shot in Morocco after its schedules in the UK and Tunisia. While it comes with its set of challenges, the filmmaker has also used it to his advantage by scaling up the movie and splitting it into two parts.

In a recent exclusive interview with OTTPlay, Jeethu talked about how the pandemic and Drishyam 2’s success impacted Ram, which had shot about 50% of its portions before the worldwide lockdown in 2020.

“We have made a few changes. Basically, there were a lot of areas that I could increase the scope of Ram,” says Jeethu. “It’s because the protagonist Ram’s character is like that; he is someone whom you could describe as pan-world. I had initially limited such a character to just one movie. But after the acceptance of Drishyam 2, the consequent expansion of Lal sir’s market and the delay of the film for about two years, I felt it could be done on a bigger canvas. And when I discussed the possibility with Lal sir and the producers, they were also all for it. That’s how we increased the scale.”

Ask him if the reason for making the film as a duology had more to do with several films such as KGF and Pushpa too following the route rather than the demand of its content, Jeethu says, “There’s a particular area in Ram’s life that needed a lot more work, and if we had to incorporate that into the film, it wouldn’t fit into just one movie. We can’t make a movie that is five hours long and that’s why it’s been split into two parts. When I initially tried to squeeze everything into a single film, the duration was too long. So, when I tried editing, it was causing a lot of trouble as we had to trim important portions too and that also disrupted the continuity.”

Jeethu informs that both instalments are being shot simultaneously. “Both are being shot simultaneously. We will be releasing the first instalment and then there will be a considerable gap before the second part hits theatres,” he says.

But doesn’t that also come with risk, especially if the first part doesn’t work? “We are confident that the first instalment will work. It’s after we have decided on the story and script that we took the call of doing it as two parts. Those who heard the story thought it was interesting. Whenever you make a movie, there’s a certain element of risk involved. You can never predict how it would work in theatres,” Jeethu concludes.