Sunny Wayne’s Pidikittapulli leaked online, prompts Jio Cinema to drop film ahead of planned release

The online leak of Sunny Wayne and Ahaana Krishna’s Malayalam movie Pidikkitapulli has forced Jio Cinema to drop the movie ahead of its scheduled release at 11am on August 27. The movie is currently available on the streaming platform.

The movie’s director Jishnu Sreekandan had put out a video on his social media page on Thursday, saying that he feels disappointed about the calls he had been getting since last night about people informing him that the movie is available on torrent sites and Telegram.

“I have dedicated almost four years of my life for this movie. Whether the movie is good or bad is secondary, cinema is a business. There is a producer who believed in a debutant like me. Fortunately, a platform like Jio Cinema came forward to release the movie during the pandemic, but even then, a movie that was supposed to release at 11am on Friday was leaked from a huge platform like this,” said the filmmaker.

What’s most disappointing, he said, that even though it’s available for free on Jio Cinema, there are people willing to seek illegal means to watch the movie. “What will happen is that the viewership of the film will reduce in their platform and they will deem Malayalam cinema as a non-viable option,” says Jishnu, adding that the industry is progressing due to the favours of a few OTT platforms. Jishnu, who has also co-scripted the film with Sumesh V Robin, also urged the viewers to watch the movie on the OTT platform.

The movie touted to be a comedy thriller that would remind the fans of similar films of the 80s. The story revolves around two couples – a Kochi-based scrap artiste named Luca and his girlfriend Niharika, and Akbar, a police officer, and his wife Fathima. The movie has Sunny Wayne, Ahaana Krishna, Baiju Santosh, Major Ravi and Saiju Kurup. The movie’s plot takes place in the span of a day. The shoot of Pidikittappulli was over in 2018 with Kollam being the main location.