After Bison, Dhruv Vikram Turns Mass for DV4

Dhruv Vikram has spent his early career picking roles that ask for something, the wounded intensity of Adithya Varma, the coming-of-age weight of Mari Selvaraj’s Bison. His next is a deliberate turn in the other direction. Titled DV4 for now, the film was launched in Chennai with a pooja on Thursday, and everything around it points to a straight commercial swing rather than another actorly deep-dive.

It is his fourth outing as a lead, and the first for Mythri Movie Makers in this partnership. The Hyderabad house has been on a Tamil run lately, backing Ajith Kumar’s Good Bad Ugly and Pradeep Ranganathan’s Dude, both of which did strong business. DV4 is their fourth Tamil production, and pairing it with Dhruv coming off Bison’s box-office success gives the project an obvious head start.

Dhruv Vikram with the DV4 cast and crew at the launch pooja

The director is Karan Aravind Kumar, making his debut. He has co-written the screenplay with Saby. Prithvi Pandiarajan and Sai Dheena feature alongside Dhruv in the cast. The technical side carries some weight: Viki on camera, Jayasuriya editing, Praveen Raja on costumes, GM Sekhar as production designer, and National Award winner Vikram Mor designing the action, a hire that signals how central the fight blocks are meant to be to a mass-first film.

Producers Naveen Yerneni and Y. Ravi Shankar are behind it under the Mythri banner. Director Keerthiswaran sounded the clapboard for the first shot, and a clutch of filmmakers including Adhik Ravichandran, Sasi and Hi Nanna director Shouryuv turned up for the launch.

Dhruv Vikram flanked by the DV4 director and producer

What the film is actually about is still under wraps. The pitch, for now, is simple: the son of an actor known for transformation is trading the character study for the crowd, and a studio with a hot Tamil hand is putting its budget behind the shift. The muhurtham shot is already in the can, so the shoot is underway rather than pending.