Vikram's long awaited films Dhruva Natchathiram, Saamy Square compete for a suitable August release

A race is on between Vikram’s long-in-the-making Gautham Menon-directed Dhruva Natchathiram and Vikram’s Hari-directed Saamy Square. The race is about to get over. Which of the two will hit the screen first? [caption id=“attachment_4493699” align=“alignnone” width=“825”]  Vikram in a still from Saamy Square. YouTube[/caption] Both the films are in the action-adventure genre. Vikram is playing a secret agent in Dhruva Natchathiram,  a spy thriller, while he is playing a super cop in Saamy Square, a sequel to his 2003 blockbuster police story Saamy. Gautham Menon’s Dhruva Natchathiram has been long in the making. The project was first announced with Suriya in the lead in 2013 but it got shelved after “creative differences” surfaced between the director and the lead actor. In 2015, Menon revived the project with Vikram replacing Suriya in the lead role but actual shooting started only in early 2017. The film, produced by Menon’s  Ondraga Entertainment, Escape Artists Motion Pictures and Kondaduvom Entertainment, has been plagued by financial issues, which has delayed the film. Now, leading production house Lyca Productions (Kaala distributors, 2.0  producers) have bailed them out as they have picked it up for distribution. Hari, one of the most successful Tamil mass commercial directors, is behind Saamy Square and the producer is Shibu Thameens of Thameens Films, who made Vijay’s Puli and Vikram’s hit Iru Mugan. Vikram started shooting for Saamy Square almost a year after he started Dhruva Natchathiram which got held up due to financial issues. Now,  Saamy Square’s entire shoot has been completed and the post-production work is going on. Producer Shibu is planning an Eid/Onam release on 24 August or latest by 31 August. However, the powerful Tamil Film Producers Council (TFPC), which mediated between the producers of Vikram’s films, has requested Shibu Thameens to release Saamy Square after the release of Dhruva Natchathiram since the latter went on the floors first. But Shibu has made it clear to the TFPC that he has already suffered heavily due to the delay occurred in the shoot of  the Gautham Menon project. Vikram’s dates were shuffled in order to give priority to Menon’s film under instruction from the TFPC and the film is yet to be completed. Shibu released the trailer of Saamy Square on 2 June but it got trolled heavily online for its larger than life mass masala stuff. It seems Vikram was unhappy with the trailer so a few days later, he had Gautham Menon come out with a new teaser trailer of Dhruva Natchathiram, which was a classy cut and was liked by the fans. Now, the latest we hear is that Lyca Productions is planning to release Dhruva Natchathiram as early as August and by that time, Gautham Menon will complete the remaining shoot of the film. At the same time, Shibu Thameens is rushing with the post-production work of Saamy Square and plans to obtain the certification of the film by the end of this month. Sources close to him have confirmed that the film will release in the last week of August. Meanwhile, Vikram is caught between the devil and the deep sea; he cannot take sides and is badly in need of a release. His last release,  Sketch, was a commercial dud and he needs a hit in these difficult times.