Gautham Karthik, director Santosh Jayakumar on Iruttu Araiyil Murattu Kuthu and criticism of adult comedies

Despite battling criticisms from all quarters that he is ‘corrupting the minds of youngsters’ with adult comedies and juggling between his projects, director Santhosh Jayakumar sounds quite upbeat about the box office prospects of his forthcoming Tamil release Iruttu Araiyil Murattu Kuthu, an adult horror comedy which is all set to hit screens this Friday on 4 May.

Iruttu Araiyil Murattu Kuthu marks the second consecutive collaboration of Gautham Karthik and Santhosh after their previous super-hit Hara Hara Mahadevaki, which was also an uninhibited adult comedy.

“When we made Hara Hara Mahadevaki, we wanted it to be a trendsetter as it was the first Tamil film in the adult comedy genre. Then, we decided that the second film in the same space should come from our team before everyone starts to churn out adult comedies,” director Santhosh told Firstpost in this exclusive conversation.

Initially, Iruttu Araiyil Murattu Kuthu was slated to hit screens on 9 February. “I suddenly got busy with Ghajinikanth and Gautham Karthik had to wrap up Mr. Chandramouli. Then, the film industry shutdown delayed the process further,” Santhosh added.

Karthik, who started off 2018 with the fantasy comedy  Oru Naal Paathu Solren , said, “Since this was a new genre for the Tamil audience, we used Hara Hara Mahadevaki as a trial to know the audience better. It was not a full-length adult comedy film but Iruttu Araiyil Murattu Kuthu will be a full-fledged adult comedy and horror film.”

Prod Santhosh if he has plans to make it as a franchise on the lines of Bollywood sex comedy Grand Masti, he said, “We have the idea of a franchise but it’s not going to happen shortly. For now, we have stalled our plan since Gautham wants to try other genres and I too want to work on something different. It might happen in 2020, and it will either be a sequel to Hara Hara Mahadevaki or Iruttu Araiyil Murattu Kuththu.”

Santhosh said his focus was to satisfy the target audience who enjoyed Hara Hara Mahadevaki in theaters. “When the audience comes to watch a film and they know it is going to be an adult comedy, there will be certain expectations. I understood this through the feedback I received for my Hara Hara Mahadevaki. They expect more glamour too. So knowing the expectations and the genre, it is not easy to draw a line. When we overdo it, then it becomes porn. If we restrain, the adult jokes will fall flat. So we had to draw a line for every single shot in the film although my aim is to appease my target audience,” said Santhosh.

Karthik said he never had any apprehensions about working on adult comedies in quick succession. “I don’t think it is a risk-taking decision to act in an adult comedy because ever since I started my career, I wanted to try different genres and wanted to be versatile. As the director said Hara Hara Mahadevaki was not a full-fledged adult comedy film, so I wanted to try Iruttu Araiyil Murattu Kuthu. If I’m going to do this genre again, it will be after a long gap because I don’t want to be tagged. I don’t want the tag as an action hero or a romantic hero too because I wish to be able to try every role and genre as an actor,” he stated.

The promotional videos and teaser of the film capitalised on double-entendres and everything went viral on YouTube, clocking millions of views. Ask Santhosh if he briefed all the scenes to the heroines (Yashika Anand, Chandrika Ravi and Vaibhavi Shandilya) given their non-Tamil background, he said, “Initially, I was quite hesitant about briefing the female actors. Later, I thought that if I have apprehensions about explaining the dialogues to my heroines, then I can’t have the confidence to release the film in a theatre. I have taken a gutsy concept, and I thought I should be confident about it first. So before every shot, I used to explain my heroines about all the inferences we could draw from the dialogues.”

Gautham said he wanted to be a part of the new content in the industry and was not image-conscious. “In our industry, we are struggling for variety in content. So when someone brings new content, one has to take a bold move to accept that. Only then it will give courage to the others to be versatile and creative. It will open up more avenues for other filmmakers and story-tellers as well,” he said on a concluding note.