Director Lijo Pellissery seems to be having quite a bad run of late. His movie Antichrist was shelved at first due to a huge production cost of Rs. 15 crores before being picked up by Bollywood and now, Double Barrel a.k.a. Eratta Kuzhal, his upcoming movie which was announced just recently is rumoured to be shelved too – for the same reason!
Yes, that’s right; according to sources the producer has backed off from the project after learning that the production cost would be around Rs. 10 crores, which is huge for a Malayalam movie. Though the producer had shown interest in the beginning because of the intended star studded cast including Prithviraj, Fahad Fazil and Indrajith, the numbers seem to have scared him off.
Also, the expected profit was not possible from the sale of satellite rights, adding another nail to the coffin of the seemingly doomed project. Maybe Lijo should bring down his ambitious ideas just a bit to match the monetary reality of our small regional film industry…
This, however, has given the producers enough of a reason to voice their grievances out loud and the complaint list includes directors delaying the shoot costing them money and the diminishing of returns from satellite right sales.
The producers who work from under the banner of small production houses really do have it tough in the fast growing industry filled with ambitious and visionary talent who just might be a little too green to appreciate the commercial reality behind the art of movie making.
