Recently, the Tamil Film Producers’ Council and Distributors’ Council issued a ban on providing film and song clips of upcoming films to the satellite channels. The logic was that the producers and theatre owners would lose because the audience would not come to the theaters to watch the whole film. However, members were aghast at watching the clips of two new films, Dishyum and Chithiram Paesuthadi, both produced by Oscar Ravichandran. He explained that he had given the clips to Sun TV before the ban came into effect. Therefore, he is not in a mood to give any further explanations. But the councils have issued a red card against him restraining him from producing films until a satisfactory explanation is given by him. What is the impact of the ban?

All the projects under production or proposed by him are in danger of being boycotted. Most notable is of course, Dasavatharam, with Kamal in the lead and directed by KS Ravikumar. Kamal, keeping the gravity of the situation in mind, asked Ravichandran to sort out the problems with the councils. But, clever Ravichandran did not want to let go of a chance of producing a Kamal film and instead floated a new production house called R Pictures with his brother Ramesh Babu as head. He has announced that Dasavatharam would be produced by this new outfit. Meanwhile, he has also launched another film, ‘Next Ladies College 5 Km.’ This film would be the maiden venture for R Pictures. Call it business savvy or petty ego, Ravichandran does know how to navigate the industry.