Hindi
Fox Star Studios & A.R. Murugadoss score a hattrick in Tamil cinema with Raja Rani
Fox Star Studios and A R Murugadoss’ latest venture, Atlee’s Raja Rani starring Arya and Nayanthara, has clocked a domestic weekend of 12.2 crore according to the production house, making it the fourth biggest opening of the year for a Tamil film and the biggest weekend ever for actor Arya. The film has also set the overseas box office ablaze and has amassed a whopping $800,000 over the weekend. Infact, the film has become India’s third highest weekend grosser in Malaysia.
Raja Rani’s success also marks a hat trick for Fox Star Studios and A R Murugadoss’s partnership that started in 2011 with breakaway hit Engaeyum Eppothum. While the film has found tremendous critical and popular acclaim for its content, what sets it apart from any other previous Tamil films in recent times is the sheer innovation of the marketing campaign.
Talking about Raja Rani’s success, debutant director Atlee says, “I am absolutely thrilled and really thankful to the audiences and the critics for such a warm reception to the film. I am also humbled by the response to the film from the family audiences for whom I had primarily conceived this film; I believe after a long time, even during the early morning shows, family audiences are thronging the theatres.”
A.R. Murugadoss, who partnered with Fox Star Studios to produce this venture, adds, “My production partnership with Fox Star Studios has been excellent. The company has a global presence which has helped to exploit the films very well. Fox and I had decided right at the start that we want to produce good movies with good messages and Atlee’s script had all those qualities. I am happy the audiences are loving it.”
Fox Star Studios CEO Vijay Singh concludes, “It’s been a fantastic record-breaking run for Raja Rani! Along with A.R. Murugadoss, we had decided we would back good scripts and new talents in Tamil rather than rushing into multiple acquisitions and releases. Today, I am happy to say that our strategy has paid off handsomely. In marketing, we were keen to bring our learnings from Hollywood & Bollywood and apply them in the Tamil market. Kudos to the Fox marketing team and Atlee for coming up with innovative ideas like the marriage invitation invite and the first-time ever roadblock of the trailer which created a buzz for the film beyond its starcast. But all the marketing efforts are no use without good content. And director Atlee has crafted a film which is hard to believe is a debut film. We look forward to working with him on his next film too! We have had a dream run so far in Tamil cinema ever since we made our debut in 2011 and as we move ahead, we are looking at an exciting slate of breakthrough cinema with CV Kumar in 2014!”
Fox Star Studios’ next venture will be Tigmanshu Dhulia’s Bullett Raja, it will be released on 29 November.
Hindi
Remembering Gyan Sahay, the lens behind film, television and advertising
From a puppet rabbit selling poppadums to Hindi cinema, he framed it all.
MUMBAI: There are careers, and then there are canvases. Gyan Sahay, the veteran cinematographer, director, and producer who passed away on 10 March 2026 in Mumbai, had one of the latter. Over several decades in the Indian film and television industry, he turned lenses, lights, and the occasional puppet rabbit into something approaching art.
A graduate of the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) in Pune, Sahay built his reputation as a director of photography across a career that stretched from the early 1970s all the way to the digital age. He was the kind of craftsman who understood that a well-composed shot is not merely a technical achievement but a quiet act of storytelling.
For most Indians of a certain age, however, Sahay will forever be the man behind the rabbit. His direction of the iconic long-running television commercial for Lijjat Papad, featuring its now-legendary puppet bunny, gave the country one of its most cheerfully persistent advertising images. It was the sort of work that sneaks into the national subconscious and takes up permanent residence.
His big-screen credits as cinematographer include Anokhi Pehchan (1972), Pagli (1974), Pas de Deux (1981), and Hum Farishte Nahin (1988). In 1999, he stepped behind a different kind of camera altogether, making his directorial debut with Sar Ankhon Par, a drama that featured Vikas Bhalla and Shruti Ulfat, with a cameo by Shah Rukh Khan for good measure.
On television, Sahay was particularly prized for his command of multi-camera production setups, a skill that made him a go-to technician for large-scale shows and reality programmes. In an industry that has never been especially patient with complexity, he was the calm hand on the rig.
In later life, Sahay turned teacher. He participated regularly in masterclasses and Digi-Talks, often hosted by organisations such as Bharatiya Chitra Sadhna, sharing hard-won wisdom on cinematography, the comedy of timing in a shot, and the sweeping changes brought by the shift from celluloid to digital. He was also said to have been involved in a project concerning a biographical film on Infosys co-founder N.R. Narayana Murthy.
Tributes from the film industry poured in following the news of his passing, with colleagues remembering him as a senior cameraman who served as a rare bridge between two entirely different eras of Indian cinema. That is, perhaps, the finest thing one can say of any craftsman: he kept up, and he brought others along with him.
