Ajay Gnanamuthu Breaks Silence On Failure Of Chiyaan Vikram's Cobra, Calls It A 'Costliest Mistake'

Filmmaker Ajay Gnanamuthu, who is gearing up for the release of his next movie Demonte Colony 2, in a recent interview opened up about the failure of Chiyaan Vikram starrer Cobra. The psychological action thriller, which released in 2022, received mixed reviews from critics. They hailed Vikram's performance but criticised its convoluted screenwriting and excessive length. The movie bombed at the box office as it reportedly grossed over ₹59 crore only against an estimated budget of over ₹100 crore.

I should not have done that story: Ajay Gnanamuthu

Speaking to SS Music, Ajay shared that the core story was not his and was bought by the producer. He added that initially he wasn't convinced and doubted that the core line of the story had some mistakes. "I took a script to producer Lalit Kumar of Seven Screen Studio. That was initially turned down. Then, I went to another writer and came up with a script, which was turned down again. At one point, the producer brought a script to me. I wasn't convinced. I thought the core line of the story had some mistakes. We can change the screenplay, but we cannot change the core. I hesitated," he recalled.

The filmmaker continued that his team had issues and was in a dilemma about whether to go for it or not. However, the producer was persistent and wanted to do the script. "Eventually, everybody else liked that script. Then we thought we might be seeing it from a different perspective. We thought we might be able to correct it as many others liked the script. We cannot be the odd one out. So, we took somebody else's one-liner and wrote the screenplay for the screenplay," he added.

Calling it a "costliest mistake," Ajay revealed that the one-liner proved to be the mistake and he should not have made that story. He doesn't regret doing Cobra but stated that it was a wrong call.

What do we know about Cobra?

Starring Vikram in dual roles, the movie co-starred  Srinidhi Shetty, Irfan Pathan, Roshan Mathew and Sarjano Khalid. The film follows Alsan Yilmaz, a Turkish Interpol officer. He is in pursuit of a criminal who has been executing flawless assassinations when the Interpol office in France receives a thesis about the crimes called COBRA by a mathematics student from Chennai. Compelled by the information, he flies down to Chennai in his search for the criminal mastermind and almost lays his hands on him. Now aided by the student and an anonymous hacker, Aslan must find and nab the assassin and uncover his motive.