DMK's silver screen business loses grip

Udayanidhi's Red Giant Movies, Durai Dayanidhi's Cloud Nine Movies and Kalanidhi's Sun Pictures had a near monopoly in Kollywood. But the fall of the DMK in Tamil Nadu has dealt a heavy blow to these three Tamil film production companies.

It was in 2008 the three began operations. In all, 38 movies have been produced or distributed among them led by Kalanidhi's Sun Pictures with nineteen movies produced or distributed and biggest of them all was Rajinikanth starrer Endhiran.

Udayanidhi's Red Giant Movies produced or distributed ten movies and his biggest was Kamalahassan starrer Manmadhan Ambu.

Durai Dayanidhi's Cloud Nine produced or distributed 9 movies and their biggest was Surya's Vaaranam Aayiram.

Every leading actor, producer, director or theatre owner was at their behest. While an exact figure is not available statistics with the producers' council say over 45 per cent of Kollywood's overall business was controlled by the three companies. Of them just Sun Pictures controlled over 30 percent of overall business.

“It just happened by default. They controlled television media across the state. It was but natural for a producer or actor to give their movies to them if they demanded because otherwise they will ensure the movie doesn't do well,” said KR, a film producer.

But it has been over two months since the fall of the DMK government and there have been no movies from the three companies since. For some people in the industry it has been pure strong-arm tactics and they did not have a choice but to screen the movies from the DMK family.

“They were in power. We could not question them at all. Moreover, our industry functions on trust,” said Panneerselvam, general secretary at Theatre Owners Association.

Even theatre owners in remote parts of the state had to bow down to their demands.

“As individual theatre owners, we function by rotating money between movies. And if we don't pick up rights of one movie then we don't know if we will get the next movies from the production company and we will fall,” said Ramesh Babu, a theatre owner.

With the fall of the big three of Tamil production houses, a majority of Kollywood is breathing a sigh of relief with expectations of order being brought back among the Tamil film fraternity.