Aadujeevitham: Prithviraj Sukumaran Starrer Crosses ₹100 Crore Mark In 9 Days Of Its Release

Prithviraj Sukumaran's dream project, Aadujeevitham, has crossed the ₹100 crores mark in just nine days of its release globally. The film which took 16 years to come on screen, was one of the riskiest project for both actor Prithviraj and director Blessy. The actor-director duo was skeptical if the film will be accepted by the audience. On April 6, Prithviraj took to his social media handle to share the news with his followers.

Aadujeevitham enters ₹100 crore club

On April 6, actor Prithviraj Sukumaran took to his official Instagram handle to share a poster announcing the Malayalam film has entered the ₹100 crore club globally. Sharing the poster, the actor wrote, "100 Cr and counting at the Global Box Office! Thank you for this unprecedented success!"

Why did the film take 16 years to be made?

After the Malayalam novel Aadujeevitham by Benjamin was released in 2008, filmmaker Blessy bought the rights to it and approached Prithviraj Sukumaran for the same. However, the filmmaker's vision regarding the film was extremely expensive for that time and something "unthinkable" for Malayalam cinema, according to Prithviraj Sukumaran. With the word pan-India still being far from discovery, the actor-filmmaker duo decided to wait for the right time to come. Fortunately, in the next one decade, things changed with the word pan-India coming in existence and the popularity of regional cinema increasing across the world.

Prithviraj said, "From 2008, when Blessy got the rights to the film to 2024 as we speak. It's been 16 years already. In 2008-2009 when Blessy talked about his vision or idea of Aadijeevitham as a film. It was so grand. He always wanted these huge cameras for this film and make it look as organic as possible."

He added, "In 2009, the kind of money, the kind of budget that would be required to pull off something like this was unthinkable, especially in Malayalam. I am talking about a time when pan-India didn't exist. The whole terminology pan-India wasn't invented."

The film's shoot finally went on floors 10 years later in  2018

In 2018, the actor-director duo decided to finally make the film. They began with the shoot with filmmaker Blessy putting his life savings into the making of the film.

"It took us 10 years and a lot of things changed fortunately in those 10 years. Malayalam cinema in particular went through a transmission in terms of how we monetise our revenue stream. Finally in 2018, even though it remained a very big financial risk to start shooting as it remains even today, we started shooting."

In 2020, the film once again saw a hurdle with a lockdown being induced across the globe owing to the COVID-19 pandemic. After multiple delays and obstacles, the film finally hit the theatres on March 28, becoming one of the fastest Malayalam films to earn ₹50 crores first and now entering the ₹100 crore club.