Pa Ranjith, Venkat Prabhu, Chimbu Devan And M Rajesh Newest Entrants In The Tamil OTT Space’s Anthology Obsession

Before 2020, and before Covid-19 struck the world, a Tamil anthology was a thing of great rarity. The last we saw was in 2019 — Halitha Shameem's Sillu Karupatti, which did very well with both critics and the audience.

However, 2020 seems to be the year of anthologies. Even though Netflix's Paava Kadhaigal was the first to get discussed widely, bringing together the works of Vetri Maaran, Gautham Vasudev Menon, Sudha Kongara and Vignesh Shivan, the first to release was the shot-during-lockdown Amazon Prime Video original Putham Pudhu Kaalai. With names such as Sudha Kongara, Gautham Vasudev Menon, Rajiv Menon, Suhasini Mani Ratnam and Karthik Subbaraj making a film each, it released to good to mixed reviews from critics and the audience alike. 

Last week, Netflix announced Navarasa, produced by Mani Ratnam and Jayendra, which brings together nine directors, including Arvind Swami, Ponram and Karthick Naren.

Now, it's the turn of a third OTT platform, as yet unnamed, to assemble its own set of Avengers, with the announcement of a film titled Victim: Who Is Next?, produced by Venkat Prabhu's Black Ticket Company.

Apart from him, the three other shorts will be directed by Pa Ranjith (Kaala, Kabali), Chimbudevan (Puli) and M Rajesh (SMS, OKOK). Given how one associates comedy with at least three of these names, it will be interesting to see what the final film will look like. 

"Do you know what victimised, @chimbu_deven  @rajeshmdirector @beemji and @vp_offl?" asked Sivakarthikeyan in his tweet, suggesting a more serious film from these makers. The poster with blood stains all over hints at something dark and violent. 

Using an unusual promotional campaign, the film's announcement was tweeted by celebrities such as Anirudh Ravichander, Sivakarthikeyan, Yuvan Shankar Raja, RJ Balaji and Gautham Vasudev Menon, even though it is unclear if they are a part of these films, in some capacity. The other cast and crew details are awaited. 

Venkat Prabhu is also directing a web series, which he termed a "B and C centre series" titled Live Telecast for Disney plus Hotstar, starring Kajal Aggarwal and Vaibhav.