Thalapathy Vijay was upset after this Vikram starrer released directly on OTT

Thalapathy Vijay is a good friend of Tamil superstar Chiyaan Vikram. He was not happy when the latter's previous movie Mahaan was released directly on the OTT. And Vijay made no bones about his unhappiness while pulling up producer Lalit Kumar for his judgment error.

In a recent interview, Lalit Kumar, who has bankrolled Vijay's latest movie Leo under his banner of Seven Screen Studio, discussed the circumstances that forced him to take the OTT route for Mahaan, which was written and directed by Karthik Subbaraj.

The pandemic factor

"At that time I had two Virakm movies in hand, Mahaan and Cobra. And the production of Cobra kept on delaying. The director (R. Ajay Gnanamuthu) wanted to go to Russia for the second time (for the shoot). And I was not able to hold on to both movies at the same time. I tried to convince Karthik saying that if I managed to release one movie, I would get relief from the financial pressure," Lalit told Galatta Plus.

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Mahaan is an ideological struggle between a father and son, played by Vikram and his son Dhruv Vikram. As the country was still reeling under the aftereffects of the pandemic, the producer decided to play safe by opting for the direct OTT release.

"At the time, just out of the Covid pandemic, we were not sure whether or not the audiences would go to theatres. I was forced to take that call back then. Even Vikram sir was not happy. I promised Karthik that I would make up for him by doing his next movie on a bigger scale," he recalled.

"But, when Mahaan was released on OTT, Vijay sir called and scolded me. He thought it was a mistake to release such a film on OTT, instead of in cinemas. I regretted that decision after that," he added.

Mahaan is available for streaming on Amazon Prime Video.

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In the meantime, Lalit is basking in the success of Leo, which earned a whopping Rs 140 plus crores at the box office on its opening day earlier this week. The movie is expected to become one of the biggest ever hits in history of Tamil cinema.