Super Good Films Founder RB Choudary Dies in Jodhpur Crash

RB Choudary, the producer who built Super Good Films into one of Tamil cinema’s most prolific banners over four decades, died in a road accident in Rajasthan on Tuesday afternoon. The accident, near Jodhpur, occurred around 3pm; news of his passing began circulating through industry channels by 6.30pm. He is survived by his wife Mahjabeen and four sons — among them actor Jiiva, actor-producer Jithan Ramesh, and producer Suresh Choudary, who has co-run the banner in recent years.

The banner he founded — Super Good Films — was 99 productions deep at the time of his death. The 99th, Vishal’s directorial debut Magudam, is in post-production. The 100th had been in active negotiation with Vijay, and was the project the team had wanted to mark the centenary with. That conversation will not now reach the form he had imagined for it.

Choudary, born Ratanlal Bhagatram Choudary, came to films from outside the industry’s usual circuits. His family farmed in Rajasthan; his early livelihood was in steel, exports and jewels. He entered film production through Malayalam cinema in the late 1980s, moved to Tamil in 1989 in partnership with R Mohan under the Super banner, and after the partners split, founded Super Good — the name a portmanteau of “Super” and “Good Knight,” the household brand he liked the sound of. By the time the banner had crossed its 50th production, it had become the studio that mid-budget Tamil mainstream cinema’s most successful directors trusted to back family-oriented commercial scripts that other producers were nervous about.

The filmography he leaves is unusually wide. Nattamai (1994) and Suryavamsam (1997), both with Sarath Kumar, are the films most commonly cited as the banner’s signature pieces — large family dramas that became cable-television staples for the next twenty years. Pudhu Vasantham (1990), Suswagatham (1998 in Telugu), and Aanandham (2001) sit in the same lane. The Vijay collaboration ran across three decades — Thullatha Manamum Thullum (1999) early in the actor’s career, Thirupaachi in 2005, and Jilla in 2014 with Mohanlal alongside, the banner’s 85th production. Beyond the Vijay films, Super Good’s recent slate has included Maareesan (2025) with Fahadh Faasil and Vadivelu, and the in-progress Magudam.

The line Tamil cinema’s directors will probably want to remember him by is not from any of those films but from the count he kept in his own head. Choudary introduced more debut directors than any other producer of his generation — K S Ravikumar, Vikraman, Ezhil, Sasi, N Lingusamy, S Bhrindha (Brindha Sarathy), Ravi Maariya and Bala Sekaran among the most cited, with industry colleagues placing the total figure at over thirty. That habit of giving first films to people he had simply met and trusted is the practice that distinguished him from the more risk-averse end of Kollywood production. Most of those directors went on to careers built around exactly the kind of mainstream Tamil sensibility Super Good had bet on at their starting line. K S Ravikumar’s tribute on Tuesday evening framed it directly: “Super Good Films was my temple, and he was a god-like figure who shaped my journey.”

His funeral arrangements are being finalised in Chennai. The body is being transported from Rajasthan and is expected to arrive on Wednesday. The industry condolences began arriving on X within minutes of the news breaking, and are still building as we publish. Sarath Kumar — the lead in Nattamai and Suryavamsam, the two films most often called the banner’s signatures — was among the first.

Rajinikanth posted later in the evening.

Vishal, who is directing the banner’s 99th, posted from his ongoing shoot.

From the Telugu industry, Chiranjeevi — who worked with Choudary on God Father — was among the earliest to post.

Among film producers in Tamil cinema’s last forty years, Choudary’s record is one of the very few that simply kept compounding — film after film, decade after decade, mostly hits, almost no high-profile public conflicts, and a directorial bench he kept feeding through every cycle of the industry’s reorganisation. The 100th was always going to come. That it now will not is the loss the next morning’s headlines will struggle to put a number on.