Tamilnadu box-office is gearing up for an ultimate clash of titans this September 29th & 30th! Maniratnam’s magnum opus ‘Ponniyin Selvan -1‘ and Selvaraghavan’s psychological action thriller film ‘Naane Varuvean‘ is going all guns blazing to battle it out and better days are ahead for movie-fanatics.
Silambarasan starrer ‘Vendhu Thanindhathu Kaadu Part I’ is doing pretty good at the Tamilnadu box-office and is even hailed as Gautham Vasudev Menon’s comeback. Hardly two weeks later is when the real game will begin when it comes to box-office. Ponniyin Selvan team after a lacklustre start has been promoting the film with all its might in Tamilnadu while the buzz is all not that good in other markets. Although the film is labelled as a pan india project, the promotional strategy says otherwise. The film is made on a toppling budget of 240 crores (two parts combined). So the stakes are pretty high. However the film has a huge star-cast in its favour and hopefully a desi Game of Throne-esque content that is bound to grab eye-balls atleast in its own market. However, the film is not going to reach its potential in hindi markets because of its direct clash with Hrithik Roshan-Saif Ali Khan starrer Vikram Vedha. In all likelihood, the film was looking to be a safe bonafide blockbuster after Vikram from Tamil Cinema until Dhanush’s film came into picture.
Dhanush and Selvaraghavan reunites after Mayakkam Enna and one of the major USP’s of Naane Varuvean is the director-actor collaboration. The teaser of the film already grabbed eye-balls and the genre being psychological thriller only added oomph to the film amongst movie-goers. In comparison to Ponniyin Selvan-1, the film is not mowed down by a huge budget. Neither is the film suffering from pan-India syndrome. Let us not forget that Dhanush is on a high after the blockbuster success of Thiruchitrambalam and the spill-over factor is a huge advantage for Naane Varuvean.
In short, things are looking brighter for Naane Varuvean than Ponniyin Selvan-1 atleast for now. While the question of Ponniyin Selvan-1 doing better than Vikram Vedha in North-Indian circuits is out of reach, all eyes are on how the film fares in its domestic market. Everything drops down to content at the end of the day. If both films deliver then both are bound to be successful. But if either of the two stumbles, the other film is going to reap benefits big time. For now let us just keep fingers crossed for both the films to do well critically and commercially.