CoCo and Imaikkaa Nodigal: The secret of success behind Nayanthara’s double delight!
Times have changed. Audiences for Tamil films have now evolved past the star factor, and now hugely demanding strong content and proper theatre experiences in order to make them spend their money. With the wave of women-centric films also coming up with actresses signing projects with a free hand, there seemed to be a lot of projects quickly accumulating in the space. But they all need a leader, and there can be none better than Lady Superstar Nayanthara to hold that spot. With two back-to-back blockbusters in Kolamaavu Kokila and Imaikkaa Nodigal, Nayanthara has proved that there can be none better than her to show the way to other actresses on how to go about the job and emerge successful.
And this success doesn’t come easy. Industry insiders have strongly stated that Nayanthara takes more time than usual to pick her scripts, and gives special attention to new and relatively new directors who mostly bring the freshest stories to the table. While Coco was Nelson’s debut film in the industry, Imaikkaa Nodigal gave Ajay Gnanamuthu a chance to play the game with a huge budget, star cast and resources in hand after he came from a meagerly sized film in Demonte Colony. For projects like these to get greenlit, the first ‘yes’ from the lead actor is hugely important, and this is where Nayanthara’s attention and knowledge on the pulse of the audiences is very useful.
Both CoCo and Imaikkaa Nodigal hit the screens within the space of just two weeks, but audiences still returned to theatres and made both the films into big blockbusters. Speaking to Nikilesh Surya of Rohini Cinemas, one of the most socially active and busy plexes in Chennai, we hear “CoCo’s trailer had created a lot of buzz, along with Kalyaana Vayasu – the film’s viral track. With a good release and good word of mouth spreading right, the film went on to do very well. In the case of Imaikkaa Nodigal, the initial bookings weren’t great as people were in two minds as they had just seen a Nayanthara movie. Even though the reviews weren’t unanimously positive at first, the word of mouth was so good that the film started soaring. Thriller is the genre that is currently in trend now, and that’s why it did even better. Even on the 25th day, the film ran houseful. We actually don’t have space to accommodate it further because of the new releases. If we could, we would continue the run for a week or more.”
Although Nayanthara is a part of Thala Ajith’s Viswasam which is easily one of the biggest upcoming films in Kollywood’s pipeline, she is also arranging her graph with many interesting films, the first of which would be her horror thriller with director Sarjun. With such great content coming in from an actress of her caliber, there’s no dearth of hope for solid women-centric films in Kollywood anymore.
