Makers of Mammootty’s CBI 5 allege there were 'deliberate attempts' to sabotage movie on social media

CBI 5: The Brain was one of Mammootty’s most-anticipated movie in recent times because of the fanfare the franchise has had over the past 34 years. The makers were also hoping it would continue the momentum that Mammootty’s previous release Bheeshma Parvam had created in the box office earlier this year. However, the movie, which has Mammootty reprising his role as CBI Sethurama Iyer for the fifth time, opened to mixed reviews when it hit theatres.

In a press conference held in Thiruvananthapuram, the film’s director K Madhu and scriptwriter SN Swamy talked about the challenges the movie had to face since its release, one among them being “a deliberate attempt to form a negative opinion about the film”.

Madhu said that Mammootty was elemental in the creation of CBI Sethurama Iyer. He was the one who suggested Swamy to make the character a Brahmin instead of going with Ali Imran as initially planned by the scriptwriter, explained the filmmaker. “Mammootty’s name is now synonymous with Sethurama Iyer,” he said.

The filmmaker then went on the explain that each of the five instalments in the franchise were made keeping in mind the contemporary audience of the time. “However, there has been deliberate attempts to break that trust with the audience with some trying to create a negative opinion about the film in its first few days of theatrical release. It succeeded to an extent but the movie has weathered that challenge,” the director said.

Meanwhile, its scriptwriter said that he was hurt by negative opinions that found its way within 30 minutes of its first show in theatres. Swamy, who has scripted over 60 films, said that in the past such malpractices didn’t exist and what the degrading of a film social media eventually does is impact the producers more than its makers or actors.

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