Tovino Thomas remembers how during COVID they had promoted Minnal Murali (2021).
Tovino Thomas, a well-known Malayalam actor who won the hearts of Indian viewers as a comical superhero in Minnal Murali, is gearing up for a comeback. Due to limitations, the Netflix distribution of the action comedy replaced its theatrical debut. The superhero movie that made Tovino a sensation across India is now a franchise with a follow-up in the works. Tovino spoke exclusively with Bollywood Hungama about the preparations for Minnal Murali 2.
Minnal Murali 2 will only be released in theatres. I want Netflix to buy the OTT rights to the movie after it opens in theatres,” Tovino Thomas said in an interview. He also recalled how difficult it was for them to market the superhero comedy because of COVID rules and regulations. The actor claimed that, for the prequel, OTT release was their best option at the time, but that for the impending sequel, things would be quite different.
Netflix has played a very big part in Minnal Murali’s promotions. At that point of time, that was the best option we had – to release it in OTT; because we had 50 percent occupancy in theatres and so many restrictions. And the kind of promotions Netflix did that was necessary. And for Malayalam industry, it’s not very easy to do such promotions. It will cost moderately big budget movies’ budget to promote a movie like that. So whatever Netflix did was definitely an add on to the content we made. So we are very thankful to Netflix and very thankful to people who worked for that movie,” he continued
Tovino stated, “Having said that, I want the second portion (Minnal Murali 2) to be released in theatres only.
For the uninitiated, Basil Joseph’s Minnal Murali starred Guru Somasundaram as the antagonist and Femina George as the leading heroine. In addition, Tovino Thomas received the Best Actor honour at SIIMA 2022 for his work in the well-liked movie.
