There was a time when he wasn’t a regular watcher of Malayalam movies, but now he is, says C J Roy, the man who holds the reins of Confident Group.
“Nowadays, I watch Malayalam films in the very first week of release itself. It helps one to know the pulse of the public. Also what I have noticed about the Malayali viewers is that they always appreciate work that is worthy enough. But, they mercilessly reject movies that outrage their sense of logic,” says Roy, who was in the city for the grand promotion of ‘Casanovva’, the first Malayalam movie produced by Confident Group.
His maiden Malayalam venture ‘Casanovva’ , that releases on Republic Day, has already generated huge pre-release hype. The reason is not only because superstar Mohanlal plays the role of the flamboyant Casanovva, and is teaming up with director Rosshan Andrews, but also because the movie is the costliest film ever made in Malayalam.
The writer duo of Bobby and Sanjay have penned the script. “We announced the project three years ago and its launch was one of the biggest witnessed by the Malayalam industry. At that time itself, I told Rosshan that budget would never be a constraint towards making a quality film. Now it is left to the audience to have the final say,” he says about his big ticket movie.
Regarding the budget of the movie, Roy says that every year the Confident Group has been spending about ` 15 to 20 crore towards its marketing plans in Malayalam. “This year Casanovva will be our branding vehicle. We have already branded the movie as ‘Confident Casanovva’. We are also planning novel marketing strategies for the film and have already launched an ad campaign for the movie using two Limousine cars,” he says.
Roy feels it is high time that Malayalam cinema starts to look at high-budget movies that can compete with big-budget Tamil and Hindi films. “Since Kerala is too small a market for huge productions, we will have to think of releasing the movies in more centres ie other states as well. We will have to explore the overseas market further. To capture more global share, we need to offer top quality movies that can match up to international standards,” he says.
Ninety-five per cent of the movie was shot in Dubai and Bangkok. Completed in 87 days, the movie will also feature more than 50 exotic cars, helicopters and luxury yachts. “Getting permissions for locations caused a bit of delay. For instance, just as we finished all the formalities to shoot some portions of the movie at Burj Khalifa, the MI4 team also applied for the same. Being a Hollywood movie, priority was given to them and we had to reschedule things. I hope that the scenes shot at Burj Khalifa have come out well,” Roy says.
The cinematography of the movie is by Jim Ganesh, who rolled the camera for Tamil movies like ‘Adhavan’ and the action sequences have been shot by Bollywood stunt master Alan Ameen. “I have to specially thank Mohanlal for the support that he has lend the project. He performed the stunt sequences without any duplicates. It was his commitment that helped us complete the project successfully,” Roy says.
Apart from ‘Casanovva’, Confident Group also plans to launch three more movies this year. The first one is the remake of the super hit movie ‘Rajavinte Makan’, with Mohanlal and Suresh Gopi in lead roles. The other projects include a Mammootty-Blessy movie and a Dileep- Jayasurya film.
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