Monday, April 03, 2006

Vijay: Go and just do it!!

They say, success begets success. No where is it more true than the tinsel world of Kollywood. There are several stories of ordinary guys who became stars overnight riding on the crest of a hit. In an industry which thrives on hype and carefully crafted PR dos, having a string of hits is a sure passport to continued popularity. Ilaya Thalapati Vijay was until recently the man with the Midas touch. He started out as a precocious hero but found a new persona with Kadhalukku Mariyadhai. He hit it big time with Poove unnakaga, Thulladha Manamum Thullum, Gilli and Tiruppachi. It created a halo of invincibility around him.

Despite a blip with Sachein, his Sivakasi proved to be a marginal grosser. His much awaited home production, Aathi, which was also touted as the acid test against his long time spat mate, Ajith’s Paramasivan, unexpectedly didn’t do well. The film also faced some unsavory finance controversies. All this set tongues wagging about how Vijay had become a burn out, a case of peaking too early.

Vijay’s formula has always been to go with a mixture of everything - sentiment, action, comedy and romance. This mish-mash worked well for a while, but after the shake up of Aadhi, Vijay is taking care about the scripts he would choose for his next film. He had disclosed in a magazine interview that he was not interested in experimenting or changing his screen image as he was concerned only about the expectations of his fans. But, the rejection of Aathi, and the conscious attempt by his idol, Rajini himself in choosing a fresh theme like in Chandramukhi, which assured him a comeback, have set Vijay thinking. He has only been listening to plots for the past several weeks.

He has begun to explore new directors and themes. So far, he has okayed only Muthuvadugu’s story. Even this news has been bogged down by reports that Vijay had suggested some changes and this was the reason for the postponement of the film.

Although Muthuvadugu is director Perarasu’s brother and Vijay shares excellent rapport with Perarasu, Vijay would not proceed until he gets the required level of confidence.

So, Muthu Vadugu has sought the help of three assistant directors of Shankar and with their help is now finalizing the script. There were also rumors that there were irreconcilable differences between Vijay and Muthuvadugu because of which the project could be called off. However, the director denied these reports and said that he was fine tuning the script. Pooja for the film would be held on April 14 at Prasad Studios.

So far no other films have been announced with Vijay. His much awaited film with S.J. Suryah, Puli has been called off after some issues in creative department.

All the happenings are well known to be repeated again. Apart from this, Vijay has listened to stories from Gautham Menon, Lingusamy, Saran, Vishnuvardhan, Hari, Ezhil and Ragavendra Lawrence. But none of these could satisfy Vijay for immediate start. However, Vijay has suggested some alterations to Hari, Lingusamy and Gautham’s stories. If they agree to these changes, Kavithalaya is expected to produce Hari’s, SPB Lingusamy’s and Seventh Channel Narayanan Gautham’s films.

Apart from son, father SAC also listens to lots of stories from all wannabe directors.

Vijay’s asking rate of whopping Rupees Five crores per film has not changed as he is confident that he will bounce back. He is taking precisely the right kind of steps to ensure continued success. It is in fact good for the Tamil film industry that an excellent actor like Vijay is taking the extra care in coming up with a solid product the next time. It needs to be remembered that recent hits like Autograph, New, Chithiram Pesuthadi or Gajini or Sethu for that matter were all rejected initially by top heroes. They however went on to create big records at the box office. Vijay should be careful that in his attempt to choose a story and modify it according to his persona, not to inadvertently miss a good story.

Director Mishkin had a story to tell about how many heroes simply refused to work in his film Chitthiram Paesuthadi and finally his friends pitched in as producers and Narain became the hero.

We at Behindwoods, wish Vijay all the very best in his pursuit and continue to remain as one of the most popular actors of this generation. Go and just do it!

Copyright: Behindwoods.com

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