As Sun Pictures collaborates with Rajinikanth for Thalaivar 168, a look at how the banner is maintaining its market supremacy

Sensing the rapid growth of Bollywood production houses like Boney Kapoor’s Bayview Projects LLP, Zee Studios, Reliance Entertainment, and Viacom 18 Movies in Tamil cinema, the local corporate production house Sun Pictures has now decided to produce biggies in full swing. As the political climate wasn’t in favor of them during the late Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa’s period, Sun Pictures took a sabbatical. In 2008- 2010 (before ADMK came into power), Sun Pictures released nearly 20 films, but after their friendly party DMK lost its power, they stopped production and distributing films. Sun Pictures made a comeback into film production and distribution with Vijay’s political action thriller Sarkar (2018), which mainly targeted the ruling ADMK Government and marred in controversy. [caption id=“attachment_5535801” align=“alignnone” width=“825”]  Vijay in a still from Sarkar[/caption] After _Sarkar_ , Sun Pictures also released Rajinikanth action thriller _Petta_  earlier this year. Both Sarkar and Petta yielded handsome profits to the production house, after which they debuted their third production venture, Namma Veettu Pillai, featuring leading Tamil star Sivakarthikeyan on 27 September. [caption id=“attachment_5935651” align=“alignnone” width=“1280”]  Rajinikanth in a still from Petta. YouTube screengrab[/caption] Sun Pictures has now officially announced their new film with Rajinikanth and director Siva. According to industry insiders, Sun Pictures is planning to produce a lot of big-budget movies next year, and that they are in talks with almost all the leading stars, including Vijay, Ajith, and Suriya. Sources also say that after wrapping up his cop action thriller Darbar, Rajinikanth will start his new film with Siva and Sun Pictures. The banner had earlier worked with him in Enthiran and Petta. Sun Pictures has announced its next with Rajinikanth. Check it out here

After Vijay wraps up the shoot of his soon-to-be commenced college action thriller with Lokesh Kanagaraj, the actor is expected to start a biggie with Sun Pictures. Suriya has also given his nod to Sun Pictures, and if all goes well, Hari is said to be in talks to helm the project. While Sun Pictures had worked with Rajinikanth, Vijay, and Suriya before, they are in talks to rope in Ajith for the first time for their own production venture. If both parties agree to the remuneration part, one can soon expect an announcement on the new collaboration between Sun Pictures and Ajith. A reason why stars are eager to collaborate with Sun Pictures is that the banner provides a handsome remuneration. The main motto behind Sun Pictures’ idea to produce back-to-back biggies is to establish a theatre network chain for themselves and to make sure that no other corporate production houses enter into their home turf. In the absence of Sun Pictures, many local players established a strong foothold in the distribution and production sectors. But the arrival of Bollywood production houses is certainly a threat to Sun Pictures. They follow a similar strategy in the OTT and digital platforms. Ever since Amazon Prime and Netflix started showing a keen interest in procuring the digital content, Sun Pictures offers attractive deals to the Tamil film producers. They also spend a huge sum to telecast exclusive audio launch events of these biggies. For example, traditional media houses were not allowed to record the video footages of Sarkar, Petta, Bigil, Namma Veettu Pillai, Sanga Thamizhan and audio launch events. Just like any other industry, Tamil cinema also welcomes Sun Pictures decision of investing hugely in the film industry, but a section of producers also feel that the production house will slowly monopolize the distribution and satellite business, just like how they ruled Kollywood in 2008- 2011. There were times when only films released by Sun Pictures ran well at the box office due to their aggressive promotions on Sun Network TV channels, so producers had no other option left but to voluntarily ink a deal with them.