Dear Mohanlal,
Let’s start with 2013. Its the year where Prithviraj gave the terrific Memories and Mumbai Police and had succeeded in converting lot of his haters to fans. Fahad Faazil announced his arrival through Amen, Annayum Rasoolum and Artist. Dileep continued to make money with his comedy movies. Meanwhile on the other side ,you had given Lokpal, Geethanjali, Red Wine and Ladies and Gentlemen. Many thought (and it even included me) that perhaps it’s time where you were finally seeing your decline. And then Drishyam happened on Dec 19th 2013.
You had given some of Industry’s biggest hits over years in Chithram, Kilukkam, Manichithrathaazhu ,Narasimham and so on. Drishyam was awesome. But how exactly did you manage to pull people to theaters once again at the age of 53 like no other youngster could ?! At the end of Drishyam’s theater run, it became the first Malayalam movie to enter the 50 crore club and it even collected a lot more. In John Brittas’s show, you were asked whether any other actor in Malayalam could have pulled up this success. You replied -“Drishyam would have been a super hit with any other actor”. You then paused, smiled and added – “Perhaps only the magnitude might not have been the same”. Wasn’t that the sheer confidence of a man who still knew what he is capable of ?
You then did few uninspiring movies. Meanwhile 2014 saw the rise of Nivin Pauly who then also went on to act in the huge blockbuster Premam in 2015 .It did almost threaten to beat your Drishyam but finally had to settle few notches below. Prithviraj had a great run in 2015 too with his Ennu Ninte Moidheen and Amar Akbar Antony entering the club of all time grossers. Dileep got one of his own with Two countries. Mammootty did give severe headache to state award juries with Munnariyippu and Pathemari but was perhaps unfortunate to not get any script that could create waves at boxoffice. Meanwhile some of us started to think you wouldn’t be able to recreate another Drishyam anymore. But then you came back in this latter part of 2016 saying – “A lot of you have been playing this game. Now let me take over and show exactly how it is done”!
Coming after a break of 10 months, how exactly did all these characters and scripts which had such immense potential at box-office come to you in order one after the other ? Your work in Janatha Garage got you admirers there and also crossed the 100 crore mark. Your exceptional job as the blind man in Oppam made people overlook the flaws in script .Nivin Pauly had put some records for the fastest 20 and 30 crore through Premam. You won them back one by one like a Boss ! After a month from Oppam, now Pulimurugan arrived.
How did you manage to pull off those stunt scenes at the age of 56 ? While the new generation have started to make movies following a realistic approach, how did you exactly know the pulse of our audience that we had been also waiting for a mass action movie for a while ? How do you manage to make people stand in long queues despite several early shows and late night shows ? How do you create such electric atmosphere even in outstation multiplexes ? If first few days are any indication, Pulimurugan might in all probability cross Drishyam to be the all time grosser. I dont think there is another actor in our country (with the exception of Rajnikanth) who has had such amazing hold in their industry’s boxoffice over 3 decades. How exactly do you keep pulling this off ?
We know your response to these questions would be the same smile that you gave in 2014’s JB Junction show. All we could say once again is that we are lucky you were born in this part of the world. Just keep doing what you are doing now. We are loving every bit of it.
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