Do you know that Deepika Padukone marked her Tamil debut opposite Rajinikanth? However, the film turned out to be the biggest disaster of both these superstar’s lives.
It is a tough task to understand the unpredictable world of cinema. Even after spending decades in the entertainment industry, filmmakers and actors find it hard to predict what’ll work for theatrical audiences. Sometimes big-budget films garner a lot of buzz even before their release, but turn out to be a disaster and sometimes, small-budget films with no promotions become blockbusters. There have been several such instances in the past and today we are going to talk about one such big-budget film that was a blend of tradition and technology. The film featured superstars of South and Bollywood. Directed by a star kid, the Tamil film was expected to break all boundaries. But despite so much buzz, it failed to live up to the sky-high expectations.
That film was Kochadaiiyaan, which was released in 2014. The first photorealistic motion capture film in India was this one. It was a Tamil historical action movie that heavily utilized 3D motion capture technology, and it was directed by Soundarya Rajinikanth, the daughter of the renowned actor Rajinikanth. The plot was written by KS Ravikumar. It was about heroism, betrayal and vengeance. The film was visually ambitious, but cannot be compared to the budget version of Avatar due to the disappointing quality of its animation.
Deepika Padukone played the lead actress in this film. This was her first Tamil film. Interestingly, the role was first offered to Katrina Kaif, but since Katrina’s dates clashed, Deepika was cast. She reportedly charged Rs 3 crore for two days of shooting. The film featured Rajinikanth in a double role, along with other major stars like Jackie Shroff, Aadhi Pinisetty, Nassar and R. Sarathkumar. The music was composed by AR Rahman.
For the unversed, Deepika Padukone reached her peak stardom in 2014 and gave back-to-back four 100 crore films (Race 2, Ye Jawaani Hai Deewani, Chennai Express and Ram Leela). She not only won the Filmfare Best Actress award but also touched milestones that still remain unbroken. However, despite such a blockbuster year, even DP’s stardom could not save Kochadaiiyaan.
Despite its ambition and high ideas of experimenting with new methods of filmmaking, the film was unable to connect with the audience emotionally. With a budget of reportedly Rs 110-125 crore, Kochadaiiyaan failed to earn even Rs 30 crore at the box office, and the film ranks among the biggest flops of Indian cinema and Rajinikanth’s career. Though the technology used was state-of-the-art, the execution was not that great.
