Indian movie industry has looked up to Hollywood for long. Though we have our own reasons for not probing deep and delivering original pictures, anybody who looks up to Hollywood for as long as we have will find it difficult to evolve. But I'm surprised that we haven't copied some of the successful western trends.
Sequels - I can't think of any sequel to a hit Tamil film. Though we have our sentiments in naming after blockbusters or adopting the same storyline, we don't have a proper sequel where we have a hero with the same name playing a similar character. 'Gilli' is just a perfect movie to continue - Vijay & Trisha were hot at that time and everyone was lauding the fast paced screenplay. I guess the producers would have gotten their input in the first week of the sequel's release because the characters were well established and the audience wanted something like that. When even Hollywood considers sequels as an easy route to commercial success, I don't know why we haven't adopted this idea in our filmdom. The Hindi guys have begun.
Remakes - I don't root for remakes, in the original sense of the word. What Hollywood considers as a remake is an old English film made again with current generation actors to entertain the current generation audience. In India, a remake almost always means a script from one language produced in a different language. We have movies being produced simultaneously in multiple languages and commercially successful movies remade into other languages. But the trend of a movie remade in the same language has begun in Tamil with Ajith and Vijay committing themselves to old Rajini hits. A talented writer/director can take a mediocre script released at least a decade ago, modify it, spice it up and present in the same language. I don't know what a remake can achieve when the original itself is a highly popular product still etched in the mind of the audience. In most cases, both the remakes will bomb at the box, because it is an unwanted trend and both actors are incapable of mimicking Rajini.
Adaptations - I can't actually blame the film personalities. I'm totally out of touch with what's going on in the Tamil literature world and even if something good is being written I can think of a couple of factors to consider if the book is to be adapted for screen - 1) Do we have writers good enough to do justice to the quality of the material 2) How strong is the legal framework for this transition? Will the producers buy the copyrights for works in regional language? because they don't bother to inform or pay anybody when they uglily copy a foreign movie.
Sequels - I can't think of any sequel to a hit Tamil film. Though we have our sentiments in naming after blockbusters or adopting the same storyline, we don't have a proper sequel where we have a hero with the same name playing a similar character. 'Gilli' is just a perfect movie to continue - Vijay & Trisha were hot at that time and everyone was lauding the fast paced screenplay. I guess the producers would have gotten their input in the first week of the sequel's release because the characters were well established and the audience wanted something like that. When even Hollywood considers sequels as an easy route to commercial success, I don't know why we haven't adopted this idea in our filmdom. The Hindi guys have begun.
Remakes - I don't root for remakes, in the original sense of the word. What Hollywood considers as a remake is an old English film made again with current generation actors to entertain the current generation audience. In India, a remake almost always means a script from one language produced in a different language. We have movies being produced simultaneously in multiple languages and commercially successful movies remade into other languages. But the trend of a movie remade in the same language has begun in Tamil with Ajith and Vijay committing themselves to old Rajini hits. A talented writer/director can take a mediocre script released at least a decade ago, modify it, spice it up and present in the same language. I don't know what a remake can achieve when the original itself is a highly popular product still etched in the mind of the audience. In most cases, both the remakes will bomb at the box, because it is an unwanted trend and both actors are incapable of mimicking Rajini.
Adaptations - I can't actually blame the film personalities. I'm totally out of touch with what's going on in the Tamil literature world and even if something good is being written I can think of a couple of factors to consider if the book is to be adapted for screen - 1) Do we have writers good enough to do justice to the quality of the material 2) How strong is the legal framework for this transition? Will the producers buy the copyrights for works in regional language? because they don't bother to inform or pay anybody when they uglily copy a foreign movie.
The only 'Indian' film industry where you find sequels is the Malayalam film industry. If you have been following malayalam films u'll know. Bollywood is only now waking up to sequels with movies like Dhoom & Dhoom2.
In Malayalam, sequels were being made even in the 1980s. There was a Mammooty movie named 'CBI Diary Kurippu' made in mid 80s. It belonged to the mystery/suspense/whodunit genre. There were 3 sequels for that movie - the latest one was released in 2003-2004. Similarly, there was a Mohanlal movie named Kireedom and its sequel was called Chenkol.
Arun
KingofChennaii.blogspot.com
Arun,
Of course, Malayalam and Bengali film industries have a different mindset from the rest of the country, and hence they come up with such things. Of course, we can't forget the world famous Apu trilogy.
Gilli was fast paced entertaining film, like you said.but it was originally made in Telugu with Mahesh Babu as Okkadu.tamil gilli was just a remake.now you can understand why they didnt make any sequel...