He has made his bones as an actor, but it is as a filmmaker that Prithviraj Sukumaran truly pushed the boundaries of Malayalam cinema’s box office aspirations. With Lucifer, he gave the industry its first ₹100 crore blockbuster, and now, with the sequel – L2: Empuraan – he hopes to go even bigger. Ahead of the release of the Mohanlal-starrer, Prithviraj chats with HT about the film’s scale, directing his idol, and the supposed box office ‘crisis’ Malayalam cinema is in. (Also read: Interview | Mohanlal says even if superstar culture ends in Indian cinema, ‘there will always be great actors’)
On the scale of L2: Empuraan
“This film is the deep end of the swimming pool for us,” Prithviraj says of L2: Empuraan. While the film’s makers have not specified its budget, reports have claimed it is in excess of ₹150 crore, which would make it the most expensive Malayalam film ever. The filmmaker says, “I don’t think anyone in our industry has attempted something at this scale. Halfway through writing the script for this, I thought this was not going to get made. I realised that I had thrown the pebble way ahead, and for some reason, I was not able to bring it back. I was not able to make it smaller. It was only the belief of Mohanlal sir and my producer, Antony Perumbavoor, that this was made. And we decided to go all out.”
Lucifer, the first part of the planned trilogy, was a massive hit when it was released in 2019. It remains the sixth-highest-grossing Malayalam film ever. Talking about the follow-up, Prithviraj admits, “There is pressure, I will not lie. I am very aware that everyone who walks in to watch the second part of the franchise would have, in some way or the other, imagined their own version of the film. But that anticipation is also what I am banking on, what I am hoping will serve as the catalyst for this film. Having said that, this was always envisioned as a three-part franchise. So, the Empuraan was not born out of Lucifer’s success. It is happening because Lucifer was a hit, and it allowed us to expand the franchise. But the ideation was always there.”
On directing his idol, Mohanlal
Prithviraj is an unabashed Mohanlal fan. Ask him how he separates the fanboy from the filmmaker, and he promptly responds, “It’s a fanboy directing his idol; make no mistake! It’s actually a lot tougher for him (Mohanlal) because it is the fanboy in me directing. There are so many things I keep asking of him because of my aspiration of what a Mohanlal film should be. I won’t claim that I have been absolutely objective about it. I have indulged myself at multiple points in the film.”
On Malayalam cinema’s crisis
L2: Empuraan is coming at a critical juncture in Malayalam cinema’s history. While the industry has churned out some spectacular films of late, almost none of them have worked. Last month, the Film Employees Federation of Kerala (FEFKA) said that only 24 out of 200 Malayalam films released in 2024 were profitable. There were murmurs of a shutdown. Prithviraj does not pay much heed to this. He says, “I can guarantee there will not be a single year in the existence of cinema where, as a business, cinema has turned over an annual net profit. It’s a high-risk, high failure rate industry. Everyone knows that. It’s just been spoken about more right now. This whole hue and cry about the various film industries of India being at a loss is because we have news channels, social media, and means of communication more accessible to the general public. There has never been any film industry in the world where if you have made 100 films a year, 80 of them have been hits. It’s always been a high failure rate industry.”
But then what keeps the ball rolling, we ask him. The actor-filmmaker replies, “Why is the business so attractive because the return on investment is so quick, and sometimes it’s 300-400%, which is why it’s attractive for business people. Other than that, it’s a gamble.”
L2: Empuraan, directed by Prithviraj Sukumaran, stars Mohanlal, Manju Warrier, Tovino Thomas, Indrajith Sukumaran, Abhimanyu Singh, Eriq Ebouaney, Jerome Flynn, Saikumar, Baiju Santhosh and Suraj Venjaramoodu. The film will be released in theatres on March 27.
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