Director Lingusamy opens about Kamal Haasan’s Uthama Villain setback, says his changes were not incorporated

13 days ago | 5 Views

Director-producer Lingusamy, in 2015, had backed Kamal Haasan-starrer Uttama Villain, which had made the former go into a financial crisis after the film did not perform well at the box office. The film, written by Kamal Haasan and helmed by Ramesh Aravind, was produced by Lingusamy banner Thirrupathi Brothers in association with Raaj Kamal Films International. Lingusamy recently in an interview opened about the loss incurred due to the film and the aftermath of it.

What did Lingusamy say?

Lingusamy, who accepted that Uthama Villain is a film that pushed him to financially-weak position, said, "I was promised (by Kamal Haasan) that a film would be made to compensate that, with a budget of Rs 30 crores. I had done Uthama Villain with my full involvement and my choice. We wanted a film like Devar Magan, Apoorva Sagodhargal, and he also told a nice script about a man rescuing his brother which was to be played by Siddharth. But the problem is that he keeps changing the script every week. He had done that before and seen success. But since I am a producer, it was a bit difficult. As an artist, he is par excellence and we also had plans to remake Drishyam. But he did not want to do that and went and did the same for another company."

Lingusamy had also revealed that he had assured Kamal Haasan that he will not interfere into the making of the film, but will let him know the corrections after watching it finally. "He also agreed, and we had given out the list of changes. But none of the changes were incorporated the next day and he had asked me to release as it is."

About Uthama Villain

Also starring K Viswanath, K Balachander, Jayaram, Andrea Jeremiah, Pooja Kumar, Nassar, Parvathy Thiruvothu and Urvashi and others, Uthama Villain is about an actor who is diagnosed with brain tumour and reaches out to his mentor to direct him, while finding solutions to his personal problems. While the film received some favourable reviews, the release delays and issues affected Uthama Villain financially.