Lyca Productions, which ventured into Kollywood with Vijay's blockbuster Kaththi, has produced and distributed both commercial and off-beat films in the last five years. Without bothering about the financial returns, the company has passionately backed films with good content. And Rajinikanth's 2.0 remains a feather in its cap as it is a benchmark film in the Indian film history, but the flick disappointed them in the commercial aspect as it did not live up to its potential.
2.0 was reportedly made with the budge of Rs 570 crore, making it the costliest film ever made in India. The makers and the industry had hoped the film to mint big money at the box office like SS Rajamouli's Baahubali series. But despite multilingual release and top names in the cast, the Rajini-starrer struggled to strike gold at the box office. As per the trade reports, the Shankar-directorial grossed over Rs 625 crore from the theatrical release.
The production house released in many centres on its own and tried to recover the investment as much as possible. And it fetched over Rs 200 crore from the digital and satellite rights. Although the film is credited as the highest-ever grossing Kollywood film, it is declared as an under-performing flick considering its huge budget by trade trackers.
How it is Impacting Lyca's future projects?
After investing big and struggling to recover it, Lyca Productions seems to have now operating cautiously. It becomes evident after the production house deciding to drop Kamal Haasan's Indian 2, which is once again a multilingual mega-budget flick.
Going by the rumours, the money spent on the first schedule of Indian 2 crossed the allotted budget, forcing the makers to shelve the project.
Now, the latest speculations indicate that the production house has now backed out from Mani Ratnam's dream project based on historical novel, Ponniyin Selvan. The buzz is that Lyca Productions, which was supposed to bankroll the flick in association with Madras Talkies, is not funding the film.
Thus Mani Ratnam has now decided to approach other leading production house, Reliance Entertainment. The upcoming film has leading names of Indian film industry like Mahesh Babu, Vikram, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Amitabh Bachchan, Mohan Babu, Karthi and Keerthy Suresh in the key roles.
