Kamal Haasan to compensate Uttama Villain losses

Kamal Haasan starrer Uttama Villain, directed by Ramesh Aravind and backed by Lingusamy turned out to be a box office dud. As this Kamal Haasan 2015 film was a box office failure, it resulted in a massive loss for Lingusamy’s production house Tripathi Brothers. Now years after, Lingusamy has confirmed that Vikram actor Kamal Haasan will work with him to compensate for the losses incurred.

During a press event of Beginning, held in Chennai on Tuesday, he said, “We started Uttama Villain with utmost happiness of making a film. Despite making the film with all the hard work, it was a film which made us incur losses. We initially wanted to do Papanasam, he also narrated an action film, but we extended full support to do a film that he wanted. However, Kamal sir has given us the commitment to do another film to compensate the losses. Our friendship continues and we have met a couple of times. We will do a film for our company soon.” Lingusamy didn’t reveal or confirm if he will be helming the film.

It was said that Lingusamy’s production venture’s downfall was due to Uttama Villain. However, in the interview a few months ago, Lingusamy said he wouldn’t blame Kamal Haasan and that he never said a word of that sort ever. “I have watched Devar Magan numerous times and it is one of the best films in Tamil cinema ever. So, there has been a lot of learning from him,” the filmmaker said during a throwback interview.

“We wanted to do a commercial film like Vikram, but it later turned out to be something else,” he added saying Kamal Haasan is not an actor who would intend to do a film to make a loss for the makers.

Released in 2015, Uttama Villain also featured K. Viswanath, K. Balachander, Jayaram, Andrea Jeremiah, Pooja Kumar, Nassar, Parvathy Thiruvothu and Urvashi in prominent roles.

Uttama Villain revolved around Manoranjan (Kamal Haasan), a superstar, who is diagnosed with a brain tumour. However, as a last wish, he sets out to shoot a comedy film with his mentor, Margadarsi (K. Balachander), with whom he had a fallout years ago. While the film failed to create any magic at Indian Box Office, Uttama Villain received several awards in International Film Festivals.

The music of the film was composed by Ghibran, and the album is regarded as his best work to date.

To note, in August 2022, the Chennai Saidapet court sentenced 6-month jail or a Rs 10000 fine to director Lingusamy in a cheque bounce case. He reportedly paid the fine of Rs 10000 and was relieved from the 6-month jail sentence.