Vishal-led TFPC relaxes rules for Christmas, Pongal releases amid surprise announcements from Dhanush, Sivakarthikeyan

After a two-month-long strike, the Tamil Film Producers Council (TFPC) formed a release regulation committee through which they fixed the number of releases each week. Prior to the formation of the board, things were going on smoothly until Sarkar hit the screens on Diwali. Vijay Antony’s Thimiru Pudichavan, which was supposed to release along with Sarkar on Diwali, didn’t get enough screens. So, the makers postponed the release to 16 November. But the regulation committee allocated the same slot to small and medium budget flicks like Kaatrin Mozhi, Sei, Utharavu Maharaja and Ula, so the producers of said films were upset with the council. [caption id=“attachment_5555151” align=“alignnone” width=“825”]  Vijay in Sarkar. Image via Twitter/@Jaydeep45909323[/caption] Udhaya, a close friend of Vishal is disappointed with his leadership and has stepped down from his post in the council. Similarly, senior producer PL Thenappan and RK Suresh also expressed their disappointment. Udhaya said: “Vishal is my good friend but he is not helping small producers in tough situations. We are not getting enough screens. He came to power by promising that small producers will not suffer anymore but now, only the biggies are getting all the screens in the state.” After the settlement of the issues pertaining to the 16 November release, Vishal and his TFPC office bearers started facing the heat from the producers of Vijay Sethupathi’s Seethakathi, Vishnu Vishal’s Sillukuvarpatti Singam, Jayam Ravi’s Adangamaru, Dhanush’s Maari 2 and Sivakarthikeyan’s maiden production venture Kanaa. Last week, the spokesperson of Dhanush’s Wunderbar Films went off on the social networking group of producers on how Vishal was avoiding meeting with his team to fix the release date of Maari 2. “We got the censor certificate and our product is ready. The so-called meet with Vishal is not happening, so we have decided to release our film on 21 December. We can’t pay interest for a finished film which is ready for release”, he said. On Tuesday, Wunderbar Films officially announced that Maari 2 will be hitting the screens on 21 December and the trailer of the film will be available on YouTube from Wednesday (5 December). The problem here is that the Maari 2 team is yet to get the nod from the release regulation committee. As the industry was working its way around the Maari 2 release date announcement, Sivakarthikeyan also took to his Twitter to announce that his maiden production venture Kanaa will also be releasing on 21 December. Team Kanaa also is yet to get the clearance from the release regulation committee. Initially, the Tamil Film Producers Council tried to bring producers under control by hinting that those who were not following the rules of the release regulation committee will not get any support from the Film Employees Federation of South India (FEFSI) for their forthcoming films. However, producers were quite confident because TFPC can’t ban films starring leading actors like Dhanush, Sivakarthikeyan, Vijay Antony, and Vijay Sethupathi. As banning big star films would have only led to a huge chaos in the industry, TFPC put their idea on backburner. A section of producers alleged that Vishal’s own production house, Vishal Film Factory, was backing the Kannada biggie KGF which is also slated to release on 21 December. Rumour has it that the producers’ council suggested the team of Seethakathi to occupy the 14 December slot, but they refused because the makers of 2.0 have around 450 screens in the state for their film, till 19 December. Many producers say that Tamil Film Producers Council allocated excellent slots and a two-week gap for biggies like Sarkar and 2.0, but small and medium budget films have no option but to compete among themselves to get a decent number of screens. Producers also say that Vishal rarely comes to the council office these days. Since the actor is busy with films and reality shows, he has no time to listen to the problems of small producers. The problem is not only for Christmas releases. Some of the producers had wanted their films to release on Pongal but Sun Pictures confirmed that Rajinikanth’s Petta will release on the festival day. Their announcement comes without having consulted the council. [caption id=“attachment_5549131” align=“alignnone” width=“825”]  Rajinikanth and Simran in Petta poster. Twitter[/caption] Discussing all these issues, TFPC has now come to a conclusion. They have relaxed regulations for Pongal and Christmas releases. In their statement, TFPC mentioned that several producers preferred these two festival dates and were in no mood to listen to the suggestions of the council. “We told them to release a few films on 14 December but no one listened to our suggestion. All of them felt that releasing their films on these two festival dates will give them a safer environment at the box office, so we have decided to relax our regulations. Producers who want to release their films on 21 December and 10 January can go ahead and proceed with their respective plans”, said the Tamil Film Producers Council.