This ambitious project, taken over by SUN TV, was abandoned by Ayngaran International and Eros during the economic recession that rocked the global financial markets. It underwent numerous title changes including Iyanthiran and Iyanthira. When, in September 2008, the official title Enthiran was finalized, Ayngaran / Eros cited financial pressures and decided to walk out on the movie. However, SUN provided wings to Shankar’s sci-fi dreams after Ayngaran sold the project in late 2008.

With a working budget of Rs. 150 Crores, Shankar has made sure that he had the best of both worlds working for Endhiran starting with Rajinikanth and Aishwarya Rai. Enthiran is loosely based on Sujatha’s novel ‘En Iniya Iyanthira’. Sujatha’s passing away would definitely have been a setback in the proceedings but Shankar has also roped in Vairamuthu’s son Karky Vairamuthu. Endhiran also boasts of double Oscar and Grammy winner Rahman’s music, Rathnavelu’s cinematography, Resul Pookutty’s sound engineering, world class computer graphics and makeup artists.

The audio rights alone were sold for a few crores to Think Music and Enthiran became the first Tamil movie to have its songs featured in the i-Tunes top 10 list.

Thanks to the strategies of the think-tank at SUN pictures, Enthiran has already started minting money for the production banner. There has been a few events (audio release, trailer release and trailer screening) that were telecast in SUN TV earning the producers advertisement revenue. The movie’s first week tickets have been sold out ensuring sure-shot returns for the theatre owners and distributors in the first week itself. This is only the case in Tamil Nadu and the other states (Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and the North Indian states where the Hindi version is being released) are expected to bring in as much revenue.

As if the never- seen-before publicity is not enough, there is news that Shankar has plans to fly down Chitti (the Robot of Enthiran) to India for promotional activities. The rent will run into crores but that isn’t making the producers flinch. Chitti, which is in the Stan Winston Studio in California, will be brought to India and Shankar has confirmed the news himself.

So Enthiran is essentially a Diwali before Diwali. It’s all over the place. Pardon the cliché: love it or hate it, but it’s just impossible to ignore it. Enthiran has too many ‘firsts’ up it sleeves: for starters, it’s the most expensive Asian film ever made and the first Indian movie to take the largest worldwide opening.

Notwithstanding all this, do you even need reasons to watch a Rajini film, since the last you saw him lit up the screens was way back in 2007? We don’t think so.