Vikram Vedha director Pushkar on clashing with PS 1: ‘You can’t beat Ponniyin Selvan’

Both Vikram Vedha and Ponniyin Selvan: I release in theatres on September 30. And while the scale and target audiences of the movies differ, many have said the competition between the two star-studded films will be something to watch out for. The directors and stars of Vikram Vedha, however, are downplaying it. At a recent media interaction in Delhi, team Vikram Vedha threw their weight behind PS1 with the director saying the film can’t be beat. Also read: Mani Ratnam reveals Ajay Devgn is the narrator in Ponniyin Selvan I

Ponniyin Selvan: I is based on Kalki Krishnamurthy’s popular 1954 novel of the same name and is considered one of the finest historical novels written in Tamil. Pushkar and Gayathri, the directors of Vikram Vedha, who both hail from Tamil Nadu themselves, said the text was an inspiration for them. Responding to a query about the box office competition between the films, Pushkar, one-half of the director duo, said, “Ponniyin Selvan is a classic text, a tale of intrigue set during the Chola Empire. You can’t beat that. It’s a six-volume book that I read back in the day. That text has been an inspiration for every writer coming out of Chennai. We do our part and they have done theirs. Let’s hope people go and watch both the movies. I think Friday-Saturday or Sdaturday-Sunday. I’ll be going and watching that movie for sure.”

Hrithik Roshan, one of the stars of Vikram Vedha, however, quipped that for him it was just his film he was focusing on. “I haven’t read the book. So for me, it’s just Vikram Vedha. That’s all I know, the actor said jokingly. His co-star Saif Ali Khan, however, echoed their director’s thoughts and added, “Yeah, go watch both the films.”

Directed by Mani Ratnam, Ponniyin Selvan is a fictionalised account of the early days of Rajaraja I, the Chola emperor. The film stars Vikram, Karthi, Jayam Ravi, Aishwarya Rai, Trisha Krishnan, Aishwarya Lekshmi, and Sobjita Dhulipala. Vikram Vedha, on the other hand, is a remake of Pushkar and Gayathri’s Tamil hit of the same name, which starred Vijay Sethupathi and R Madhavan. The remake also stars Radhika Apte, Yogita Bihani, and Rohit Saraf.