Endiran 2010

Endiran Interesting Facts 

Among the highest grossing Tamil movies of all time.

According to director S. Shankar he originally written movie for Kamal Haasan, and they even made a photo shoot for the promotion of the movie. The film was originally planned in 2001, and was to star Kamal Haasan and Preity G Zinta.

First Tamil film soundtrack in iTunes World Album Top 10.

This was director S. Shankar's dream project, which he had wanted to do since 2001.

Shooting occurred at SIPCOT IT Park, Siruseri, Chennai from 23-27 August. There were more than 30 people dressed and made-up to look like the honorable thalaivar, Rajinikanth.

First Indian film for Mary E. Vogt, the costume designer for the Men in Black series and also for Woo-Ping Yuen, action choreographer in The Matrix and Kill Bill sequels.

Made on a budget of Rs.180 crores (approximately US $40 million), this was the most expensive Indian movie ever made during its time..now it will be The Mahabharata costing Rs. 1000 crores

First Indian sci-fi movie with 1,500 graphical shots.

WILHELM SCREAM: The famous stock scream sound appears in the climax fight, when a helicopter pilot is grabbed and thrown out by Chitti, who is on top of a thin tower of robots.

Depictions of cobras serve as a lucky mascot in Rajinikanth's films. Nearly all of his films featuring them in one form or another become either top-grossing films or commercially successful films at the box-office. In this film, one of the formations of Chitti's CR-army of robots in the climax fight is a giant cobra.

First Indian film of Woo-Ping Yuen, action choreographer in The Matrix and Kill Bill sequels.

Miwako Fujioka, a member of the Japan-based Happinet Corporation, called Enthiran "a Bollywood Transformers type of film with a lot of Indian flavours in it."

In a personal appreciation letter to Shankar following the film's release, the director K. Balachander described Shankar as India's James Cameron, "Enthiran" as India's "Avatar" (2009) and Sun Pictures as India's Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

Rajinikanth's following film after Enthiran was 'Kochadaiiyaan' (2014), which was India's first full motion-capture animated film. However, 'Enthiran' was the first time Rajinikanth performed via motion capture. This was for a few parts as Chitti, notably the robot's first attempt at walking near the beginning of the film (where he mimics the walking style of his creator Dr. Vaseegaran, also played by Rajinikanth), and the robot-giant formation near the end of the climax fight.

Acclaimed South Korean film director Jee-woon Kim praised the film and expressed his desire to make a similar kind of film with so e historical drama thrown in.

The dialogues, cinematography, editing and art direction were handled by Madhan Karky, R. Rathnavelu, Anthony and Sabu Cyril respectively.

After being stalled in the development phase for nearly a decade, the film's principal photography began in 2008 and lasted two years.

The film marked the debut of Legacy Effects studio (which was responsible for the film's prosthetic make-up and animatronics) in Indian cinema.

The state government of Tamil Nadu granted tax exemptions for films titled in Tamil, resulting in the new production being renamed Enthiran.

In December 2008, Eros International withdrew from funding the project after financial difficulties caused by the box-office failure of Drona (2008) and Yuvvraaj (2008), with the subsequent departure of Ayngaran International, which struggled with the global financial crisis of 2007-08.

The project was revived in January 2008 with Eros International and the London-based production company Ayngaran International willing to produce the film.

One month post the release of his action film Sivaji in June 2007, he approached Shah Rukh Khan for the lead in Robot.

In an interview with the Tamil channel Sun TV, held shortly after the film's release in October 2010, Rajinikanth revealed that Shankar, following the release of his Indian in 1996, had approached and pitched three storylines for him to consider for his next venture.

While Sujatha Rangarajan was originally assigned to write the dialogue for the film, Madhan Karky took over after Rangarajan's death in February 2008.

In January 2008, Rajinikanth accepted the lead role in the film for a salary of INR450 million.

Shankar rewrote the original script to suit Rajinikanth's acting style.

Rajinikanth was impressed with two of the scripts and agreed to star in the films, which became Sivaji and Enthiran.

When Shankar revived the project with Rajinikanth, contenders for the part included Priyanka Chopra, Deepika Padukone, Shriya Saran and Rai, who was ultimately selected and paid INR 60 million.

According to make-up artist Banu, no prosthetics were used for Rajinikanth to avoid bothering him by withholding his time on set.

The wig used for Chitti's "villain robot" look had a silver streak in the middle, made out of Yak hair, while its leather jacket was designed by Vogt.

Additional make-up was by Vance Hartwell, an employee of Legacy Effects.

The visual appearance of Chitti was based on the G.I. Joe action figures.

Filming began on 15 February 2008 at AVM Studios in Chennai.

Suits made of copper were used for Chitti's costumes.

After the initial stages of filming, Shankar and Rathnavelu toured the world for three weeks, scouting for exotic filming locations.

For Chitti's "villain robot" look, its hair was spiked and brown coloured lenses were used for its eyes, whereas for its "good robot" look, green coloured lenses were used.

For Sabu Cyril's sets, Shankar required approximately twice as much studio floor space as for his previous film.

Sabu Cyril told Uma Kannan of The New Indian Express that the sets for the climax sequence, which was filmed at Mayajaal, consisted of a tar road and glass buildings which rose to 65 feet (20 m), and that aluminium composite panels, reported to have cost INR50 million, were also used to design the sets.

Scenes featuring Rajinikanth as Chitti were captured over five days at the Perungudi Dump Yard in Chennai.

Junior artists were employed by Rathnavelu to wear masks of Rajinikanth.

Filming of the song sequence "Arima Arima" took place over 22 days in April 2009.

The set for "Arima Arima" was designed and constructed by Cyril at Ramoji Film City.

D'Souza incorporated the popping style of street dances in "Irumbile Oru Irudhaiyam", but encountered difficulties in performing the dance movements in tandem with the robot, and with the restrictions created by the rigid costumes.

The original Eros-Ayngaran visual effects budget was INR 700 million, but after Sun Pictures took over production, it was significantly reduced to INR 200 million.

The visual effects team had to omit and alter some sequences, making Chitti wear sunglasses for most of the film to reduce the cost and difficultly of animating his eyes.

Both Mohan and Shankar visited several visual effects companies, including the New Zealand-based Weta Digital and the United States-based Industrial Light & Magic, Cafe FX and Tippett Studio before partnering with Legacy Effects.

After a series of previsualisation tests, including a scene in which Chitti jumps on a train to save Sana, Mohan eventually decided to use the technique in 40 out of the 60 visual effects scenes featured in the film, consisting of 2,000 takes.

Further previsualisation supervision was conducted by P. C. Sanath of Firefly Creative Studios, a visual effects company based in Hyderabad.

3D storyboards were constructed using 3D animation programs for every scene in the film and were shot from different angles.

Rathnavelu used the 435 Xtreme camera and also wrote a 1,600-page manual, in which he listed all of the possible angles from where he could film the characters Rajinikanth played.

Legacy Effects and the Hong Kong-based visual effects companies Kinomotive Studios and Menfond Electronics took responsibility for the film's CGI work.

To create the robots with Rajinikanth's appearance, a complete scan of his face in 3D digital format in all possible lighting conditions was conducted using the Doom Light Stage, so that his face could be replicated on the mannequins.

The technique used for Rajinikanth's appearance, according to Shankar, was previously used in "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" (2008).

The robot Chitti featured in the film was a mannequin made by a Legacy Effects team of 100 technicians in Los Angeles.

For every robotic mannequin used, six puppeteers were employed to control the mannequin's movements.

The film focuses on the battle between man and machine.

Despite Shankar's claim that Enthiran was a purely original idea, it has been compared to Mary Shelley's 1818 novel "Frankenstein", owing to the similar personae of Chitti and Frankenstein's monster, both of which turn against their respective creators.

K. Moti Gokulsing and Wimal Dissanayake, in their book Routledge Handbook of Indian Cinemas, noted the similarity between the film and "Frankenstein", arguing that Chitti was "manipulated by Bohra to become a Frankenstein-like figure".

Writing for The A.V. Club, Genevieve Koski observed, "The plot of Enthiran is essentially Frankenstein via Isaac Asimov's "Three Laws of Robotics"."

Director and film critic Sudhish Kamath called Enthiran "a superhero film, a sci-fi adventure, a triangular love story with a hint of the Ramayana", while remarking that Enthiran's similarities to The "Terminator" (1984) were "more than obvious.

Sudhish Kamath compared two of the film's robots to C-3PO and R2-D2, droids from the Star Wars film series, which was referenced in "Enthiran" when Vaseegaran refers to one of his creations as "R2".

Although Shankar initially claimed that Enthiran would be made for all audiences, including those lacking computer literacy, the film is influenced by and makes references to many scientific principles relating to the fields of engineering, computer science and robotics, including terabytes and Asimov's laws of robotics.

Visual references are made to the science books "A Briefer History of Time" (2005) and "Freakonomics" (2005).

In his book "Visual Perception and Cultural Memory: Typecast and Typecast(e)ing in Malayalam Cinema", Sujith Kumar Parayil notes the similarities between Kalabhavan Mani's role in the film to the one Mani played in the Malayalam film "Sallapam" (1996).

For the soundtrack and score, A. R. Rahman made use of the Continuum Fingerboard, an instrument he had experimented with previously in the song "Rehna Tu" from Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra's drama film "Delhi-6" (2009).

The film also marked the debut of Rahman's daughter Khatija as a playback singer.

The soundtrack album to Enthiran was released on 31 July 2010 at the Putrajaya International Convention Centre in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

After the second day of release, the album's Tamil version reached the number one position in the Top 10 World Albums chart on iTunes, making it the first Tamil album to do so.

The film was released in 2,250 theatres worldwide, including 500 theatres in Tamil Nadu, 350 theatres in Andhra Pradesh, 128 theatres in Kerala, 23 theatres in Karnataka, and 750 theatres in North India.

It became the first Tamil film to be released at the Colosseum kino, a Norwegian theatre complex in Oslo.

Was screened at the 21st Bath Film Festival, held in the United Kingdom in 2011.

Additionally, a version of the film, edited to a running length of two hours, was released in Japan in May 2012.

A two hour version of the film was screened at the 24th Tokyo International Film Festival, where it won a special award under the section "Winds of Asia-Middle East".

By public demand, the original, unedited version was later released in Japan.

Advance bookings for the film began two weeks before the release date in the United States.

In the Jackson Heights neighbourhood in New York, tickets were sold out within ten minutes of going on sale.

Sun Pictures invested a total of INR 500 million on promotional activities.

The novelist Aarur Thamizhnadan made a complaint with the Chennai Metropolitan Police against the filmmakers in November 2010, stating that the producers plagiarised his 1996 novel "Jugiba".

DVD marketing in India was handled by Moser Baer.

The daily newspaper Business Line reported that Enthiran grossed INR580 million from all versions in the opening weekend.

The Economic Times stated it netted INR 1.17 billion by the end of its opening week.

It became the top-earning Indian film of 2010 ahead of "My Name Is Khan" and "Dabangg" and became the highest-grossing Tamil film of all time at that point.

According to a February 2015 report by Hindustan Times, the film has grossed INR 2.56 billion worldwide in its lifetime.

Novelist Aarur Thamizhnadan demanded INR10 million from the director and producers for plagiarism and filed a case against Kalanithi Maran. In June 2011, the Madras High Court dismissed the case after a petition filed by Maran denying the allegation was approved.

Box Office India estimated that Enthiran netted INR1.95 billion across India with the Tamil version netting INR1.20 billion, the Telugu version netting INR530 million and the Hindi version netting INR220 million.

Indo-Asian News Service stated in July 2015 that the film grossed INR 2.90 billion from both its original and dubbed versions.

Following the film's screening at the Mumbai International Film Festival, American film director Oliver Stone praised film's originality.

Lisa Tsering from The Hollywood Reporter said, "Rajinikanth is such a badass that Chuck Norris is afraid of him."

At the 58th National Film Awards, it won for Best Special Effects and Best Production Design.

The film was included as a case study in a postgraduate elective course of the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, "Contemporary Film Industry: A Business Perspective".

The overseas gross of the film is $12 million.

Joe Leydon of Variety believed that Shankar "riffs on everything" from Frankenstein to The Terminator, but suggested that the film was an "overwhelming mash-up of American-style, f/x-driven sci-fi spectacle and a Bollywood musical."

In March 2015, Kamath, in his review of the science fiction film Chappie, compared its eponymous lead character to Chitti in terms of learning human emotions.

In an interview with Geety Sahgal of The Indian Express, Shankar stated that Rai had her dialogues translated from Tamil to English and rehearsed it the night before each day of filming.

Scenes from the film, particularly one known as the "Black Sheep" scene, have been parodied in subsequent films, including "Mankatha" (2011), "Osthe" (2011), "Singam II" (2013), as well as in the Telugu films "Dookudu" (2011) and "Nuvva Nena" (2011).

Rajinikanth was featured in a cameo role as Chitti in the science-fiction film "Ra.One" (2011).

On Rajinikanth's 64th birthday, an agency named Minimal Kollywood Posters designed posters of Rajinikanth's films, in which the Minion characters from the "Despicable Me" franchise are dressed as Rajinikanth. The digital art was hand drawn on a digital pad by Gautham Raj. One of the posters depicted a mutated Minion, reminiscent of Chitti's "villain robot" look in Enthiran.

The Hindi music launch event was attended by Amitabh Bachchan, Jaya Bachchan and Abhishek Bachchan, along with the crew of the film.

Co-hosted by Vivek and Punnagai Poo Gheetha, the music launch event was attended by most of the film's cast and crew members, including Kalanithi Maran, S. Shankar, Rajinikanth, Aishwarya Rai, A. R. Rahman, Santhanam, Karunas, Vairamuthu, R. Rathnavelu, Anthony, Sabu Cyril, and Yogi B. Other invited guests were Dayanidhi Maran, Radha Ravi, Vadivelu, Shriya Saran, Jayam Ravi, Ramya Krishnan, S. A. Chandrasekhar, Aishwarya and Soundarya Rajinikanth, Krish, and Sangeetha Arvind. Furthermore, Silambarasan, Vijayalakshmi, and Poorna were part of stage performances.

The Telugu music launch event was attended by Chiranjeevi, D. Ramanaidu, Mohan Babu, Srinu Vaitla, Kajal Aggarwal, and Kamna Jethmalani.

The song "Irumbile Oru Irudhaiyam" marked the singing debut of Lady Kash and Krissy in Tamil cinema.

According to the director S. Shankar, art director Sabu Cyril and cinematographer R. Rathnavelu, picturising the song "Arima Arima" was the most challenging part of the whole film.

For shooting the song "Kilimanjaro" Machu Pechhu, there were interventions from the Indian government to grant permission for the filming, which was denied to many international projects, such as "Quantum of Solace" (2008).

The song "Arima Arima" features two robotic lions, the creation of which, according to Sabu Cyril, is a professional secret.

The first song "Pudhiya Manidha" was choreographed by Prabhu Deva with his Bharata Natyam trained assistant Ajeesh dancing for the robot

In Australia, Enthiran ranked on the top spot by 5 August.

The soundtrack also topped the Indian charts, where first five positions were defended by "Enthiran" songs for more than three months.

"Kadhal Anukkal" topped the charts for more than eight weeks.

The Hindi version of "Kadhal Anukkal", "Pagal Anukan", peaked at #4 position in the weekly charts.

The audio is said to have created history and have registered a record breaking sale in the Indian audio market.

In the United Kingdom, Enthiran ranked third place on iTunes and by the following day occupied the top spot successfully.

The song "Kilimanjaro" features African tribal percussions created by multiple Octapads and vocals, which well suits the song situation.

The British Board of Film Classification and Amazon gives the runtime as 166 minutes and 177 minutes respectively.

Robot action scenes were used in Black Eyed Peas song "Action".

0:55 of the song "Robo Da" from Robot (2010) was sampled from 1:51 of the song "I am a Disco Dancer" from Disco Dancer.

In the film, Chitti often introduces himself by stating the clock rate of his central processing unit, which is 1 terahertz (1012 hertz), and his random-access memory limit, which is 1 zettabyte (1021 bytes). This introduction dialogue, which is spoken by Chitti as "Hi, I'm Chitti, speed 1 terahertz, memory 1 zettabyte" became popular.

Awards Won

Ananda Vikatan Cinema Awards 2011

Awards of the International Indian Film Academy 2011

Edison Awards India 2011

Filmfare Awards South 2011

National Film Awards, India 2011

Tokyo International Film Festival 2011

return to Shankar Blockbuster movies

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