Sundar C calls Mookuthi Amman 2 the hardest film of his life

Sundar C has made more than 30 films in three decades, and he says Mookuthi Amman 2 is the one that asked the most of him. “This is the film I have worked hardest on in my life,” he told the team and guests gathered in Chennai on October 28 to send the Diwali release on its way. He and screenplay writer Venkatt Ragavan spent two years on it, about 800 people worked on it for a year and a half, and close to 400 artists built its computer graphics.

The numbers were his answer to a wave of online chatter that the film’s visuals were AI-generated. “Criticism is fine, but it hurts when people talk about AI without knowing the facts,” he said. “There are more than 3,000 CG shots in this film, and we used AI for only 15 of them. Watch the film. If the CG is good, praise it. If it is not, give us a pat on the back anyway.”

He also explained how the sequel came about. He has never written a story to suit a hero, he said; he writes the story first and then casts it. He had an idea in hand that was not a goddess story when Ishari K. Ganesh asked him whether he would make Mookuthi Amman 2, and the two clicked together “like a divine force.” The new film is a fresh story, and only four things carry over from the 2020 original: the title, Ishari K. Ganesh, Nayanthara and Urvashi.

Nayanthara’s devotion to the part came up again and again. Sundar C recalled that when the shoot ran into an early hurdle, she fasted and prayed at the Masani Amman temple for the film to go smoothly. Ishari K. Ganesh said she had fully given herself to playing the goddess, and Khushbu put it plainly: “Nayanthara was born to play Amman.”

Khushbu, who co-produces the film, gave the evening its warmest speech. “I gave birth to two children, but I adopted one, and that is Sundar C,” she said. When a Sundar C film plays, she said, the theatre smells of jasmine, and in 32 years of hits and misses he has not changed one bit. “When it comes to work he will not look at family, wife or children. He only thinks about how to make a profit for his producer.” She saved some of her praise for Urvashi, her friend of many years: “When Urvashi is in a scene, every eye is on her. She is the only actor I tremble in front of.”

Regina Cassandra plays Bhairavi, and she described the part as her first full-blown commercial villain in two decades in cinema. She credited Sundar C’s vision for drawing her in, and promised that the face-off between Bhairavi and Nayanthara’s goddess is one to wait for. Sundar C said her role stands level with Nayanthara’s and that she pushed herself hard for it. Urvashi, whom Sundar C called a point of pride to direct, picked out Regina’s character as one of the film’s big surprises. She also shared a memory of her own: as a child she went with her mother to the Bhagavathi Amman temple in Mandaikadu every Pongal, which is why the Mookuthi Amman title has always felt personal to her.

Hiphop Tamizha Adhi, Sundar C’s regular composer, said the film brings back the feeling of the devotional films audiences grew up watching as children, wrapped in a proper Sundar C spectacle, and promised that fans of the director’s style will walk out satisfied. Co-producer Kushmitha Ganesh praised the director’s touch with family entertainment, Adhi’s music and Nayanthara’s screen presence, and Yogi Babu, part of the film’s comic ensemble, joined the team on stage.

The World of Mahasakthi trailer has already laid out the stakes: Nayanthara as both a jumpy police constable and the goddess, with Regina Cassandra and Duniya Vijay as the mythical villains threatening the world. Ishari K. Ganesh said the film is the first pan-Indian release for Vels Film International. It has been certified U/A and opens on November 6 in Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada and Hindi.