Trends

A good year for the tamil film industry. The year saw highest number of direct tamil film releases in the last 10 years. The year also had many hits and especially small budget movies that clicked big time. While big budget films flopped, the smaller one ensured good returns. Multinationals which entered the cinema market last year, lost out due to wrong bets placed on big heroes. Thanks to the multiplex culture, many movies made money. We followed Tollywood in releasing big movies in a large number of screens. Dasavatharam released in 10 screens of Mayajaal with 50 shows a day. The film had almost 100+ shows each day in Chennai for the first few weeks. This made the film as the biggest grosser of 2008. The year can be called as "The Year of Small Films"

Hits of 2008

2008 was again a good year for tamil films. There were a few path breaking film (ANJATHEY, SUBRAMANIYAPURAM and SAROJA), some good remakes and most films managed to make money. Again, thanks to the multiplex culture and strategic release dates (without clashes), small films managed to survive. Barring DASAVATHARAM (biggest grosser of the year) and movies like KURUVI and VAARANAM AAYIRAM (which broke-even, thanks to wide release); most big budget movies bombed. Rajini's Kuselan was the biggest flop. Out of 115 direct Tamil films released in 2008, atleast 40 movies did well. This is similar to last year. Several small movies managed to break-even and this is a good sign.

* These films didn't fare well commercially.

How They Fared

Tit Bits

Kamal proved his box office strength with DASAVATHARAM. The film released bigger than SIVAJI and the box office collection was bigger too. However, Rajini fans claimed that it required 10 Kamals to match 1 Rajini).

Sun TV entered into film production by buying some lesser known movies like KAADHALIL VIZHUNTHEN, THENAVATTU and DINDUGAL SARATHY. Their aggressive marketing of KV and the song "Nakka Mukka" made the film a hit (I was sure that this bad movie will flop and was made to eat my words). Sun TV showed the unprofessional side again by claiming their movies to be the biggest hits of the year and by not covering the movies that were sold to the rival channels.

Sun TV's Kalanidhi Maran patched up with DMK and this could result in SUN TV and Kalaignar TV working together. While viewers will benefit, the film industry which benefited by getting higher rates for movie rights may lose out.

Vadivelu's house was attacked and he blamed Vijayakanth. The comedian locked horns with the politician turned actor and the fight was funnier than their films.

Rajini's fans started a new political party and they were warned by Rajini. However, these rebels said they are not bothered as they were bugged with Rajini's inability to make a decision. Rajini met his fans in November and for the "n"th time made an unclear statement. His dialogue, "God willing, I will come to politics even tomorrow", became a mockery. Another Rajini related controversy was his shocking apology to Kannada people for some of his statements (just before the release of KUSELAN). He was widely criticized as an opportunist.

A cold war between two hot heroines was the highlight of this year. Trisha and Nayantara were friends turned rivals. There were rumours that Trisha's efforts to unite Nayan and Simbhu created tension and also that Trisha grabbed Nayan's chance in KURUVI. Nayan celebrated when Trisha's BHEEMA and KURUVI did not do well. Trisha had more reason's to celebrate as Nayan had a string of flops. The battle gets carried forward to 2009.

Namitha became the third most googled Indian cine personality of 2008. More than 3 Crore fans have searched for details on Namitha. Katrina and Salman Khan occupied the first two positions.

Jackie Chan flew to Chennai for DASAVATHARAM's audio function. This function is rated as the most expensive tamil film function. A controversy was created with some silly news on Jackie Chan carrying his own bottled water which Jackie denied in his blog.

This year Shriya took Kushbu's role in being the target of moral polices. Her skirt and tops in SIVAJI film function, created a lot of controversy. Similar concerns were raised for Mallika Sherawat's dress (worn for DASAVATHARAM audio function). While Shriya apologized, the agitators could do nothing about Mallika's "keep shouting" attitude.

Directors Amir and Seeman over played their roles by supporting LTTE in a rally. Both of them were arrested and released later. Seeman did the same mistake again and was arrested again on Dec 19th.

The following people tied the knot. Actors: Sibiraj. Directors: Bhuvanaraja (ADAIKALAM) & Krishna (Sillunu Oru Kathal). Actress: Gopika, Kaniha, Vindhya & Shreya Reddy (Shreya married Vishal's brother, producer Vikram Krishna). Music Director: Imam

Personal separations: The court granted divorce to Yuvan Shankar Raja (from his wife Sujaiya), Urvasi-Manoj K Jayan, Saritha-Mukesh and Meera Vasudevan (from Vishal - cameraman Ashok kumar's son).

Professional separations: Yuvan & Selvaraghavan had a war of words over media and have decided not to work together. While Yuvan stated that he was taken for granted and not paid for his work, Selva questioned Yuvan's commitment. Gautham Menon & Harris Jeyaraj too announced that they will not work together. However, they did not disclose any significant reason for the split.

An assistant director, Stephie complained that actor Manivannan's son cheated her by promising to marry and failing to do so.

The case against Kushbu (for insulting tamil Gods!) was dismissed by the court.

There were no tamil remake movies like last year's BILLA or NAAN AVAN ILLAI, but remix songs were the flavour of this year.

Ajith and Shalini became parents to a beautiful girl baby

Actor Kunal (KAADHALAR DHINAM) committed suicide at his mumbai residence. His differences with wife was stated as the reason

Tamil Cinema had to face the loss of some greats such as MN Nambiar (villain in many MGR movies), director Sridhar (one of the best directors of tamil cinema), writer Sujatha (most versatile writer) and actor Raghuvaran. Other notable losses were actors Pandiyan, Poornam Viswanathan, Shoban Babu, violinist Kunnakudi Vaidyanathan, Theni Kunjarammal and TP Muthulakshmi. AVM Chettiyar's wife, AVM Rajeshwari and Prabhudeva's eldest son, Vishal will be missed.