Mani Ratnam’s Ponniyin Selvan 2 expected to do well at box office

“In Tamil Nadu, Ponniyin Selvan is all-time number one. Many fans are waiting to watch its sequel. It will do well as schools and colleges have their summer vacation in May. Fans are expecting to see how the film concludes the story. It will have a steady run at the box office (Tamil Nadu),” Trade analyst Ramesh Bala told Indian Express. 

He added that the film’s second part might not be a Pathaan kind of bonanza but it will do well at the box office. 

Also starring Vikram, Karthi, Jayam Ravi, Trisha, Shobhita Dhulipala, Aishwarya Lekshmi, Prakash Raj, “Ponniyin Selvan II” will be released worldwide on Friday in Tamil along with the dubbed versions in Hindi, Kannada, Telugu and Malayalam.

Filmmaker Mani Ratnam on Tuesday said the objective with historical films should be to stay honest to the events and yet make the story contemporary for the audience.

“Whatever film you make, you try to make it as well as you can. But when it is a period drama and when it is historical, you try to go as close as you cannot fantasise it and add elements which are not real. (You) try to bring it as close to reality as possible.

“This film (is) treated in that fashion and the objective while making (it) was simple, it should look like it is happening now or it should look like we are there next to the characters. So, it was shot, it was put together and performed casually and not like a historical drama so everything added to that,” the director told reporters here at the press conference. 

Ratnam’s two-part “Ponniyin Selvan” is an adaptation of author Kalki Krishnamurthy’s 1955 Tamil novel of the same name. It chronicles the story of the early days of Arulmozhivarman (Jayam Ravi), one of the most powerful kings in the south, who went on to become the great Chola emperor Rajaraja Chola I.

The Tamil language epic marks Ratnam’s fourth collaboration with Aishwarya Rai Bachchan after “Iruvar”, “Raavanan”, and “Guru”.