Cine News Digest – 03 August 2025

Rajinikanth’ Coolie set to release worldwide on 14 August

Coolie Fever has gripped the film world in the last week with the official audio launch that also marked Rajinikanth’s 50^th year in cinema. The star-studded film will see Rajinikanth sharing screen space with Nagarjunna, Sathyaraj, Soubin Shahir, Upendra, Shruthi Haasan, Kaali Venkat and Charlie, with special appearances by Aamir Khan and Pooja Hegde.

Coolie is directed by Kodambakam’s most in-demand director – Lokesh Kanagaraj, who made his directorial debut with Maanagaram and has since directed blockbusters like Kaidhi, Master, Vikram and Leo.

The film has music by Anirudh Ravichander. Thus far, three singles from the film’s soundtrack have been released, all of them have since gone viral.

Watch the comprehensive review of Lokesh Kanagaraj by TV anchor Gopinath.

Coolie will be under pressure to make box-office targets because it has an Adults-Only rating from the Board of Certification. Despite this, the film is easily one of the most awaited films of 2025 and releases worldwide on 14 August. In the USA, pre-release sales of tickets crossed USD 1 million two weeks before the film’s release.

In South Africa, Coolie will be brought to screens by Kavin Media, who have consistently brought the best screen content to South African viewers, regardless of many financial losses they have incurred.

Watch the Coolie Trailer here.

Sivakarthikeyan under the direction of Pushkar-Gayathri

The husband and wife directorial duo, Pushkar-Gayathri have commenced work with their next film, which will see Sivakarthikeyan in the lead role. The duo made waves with their last feature directorial Vikram Vedha n#and have signed Sam C.S. to score the music. The announcement has raised questions about the much-hyped collaboration between Sivakarthikeyan and Venkat Prabhu. That oroject was to have been launched after Parasakthi but there has been no word from the director since the announcement.

Vishal’s 35^th film

Work has commenced on Vishal’s 35^th film which is produced by Super Good Films, a production company owned by R.B.Choudhary, father of actor Jiiva. This will mark his 99^th production. The as yet untitled film will be directed by Ravi Arasu who earlier directed Eetti and Ayngaran. The film will see Dushara Vijayan play the female lead. 2 times National Award winner, G.V. Prakash Kumar, scores the music.

Kavin launches his 9^th film

Kavin and Priyanka Mohan come together for their first time in Kavin’s next film – his 9^th. It will be directed by newcomer, Ken Royson. Billed as a fantasy romantic comedy, the film will be launched on 18 October this year. Music will be scored by independent music composer, producer and artist, OfRo, whose real name is Rohith Abraham, who made his feature film debut in Rudhran. OfRo and Royson have collaborated on numerous music albums in the past.

Kavin’s Kiss to release next month

Meanwhile, work is drawing to a close on Kavin’s current project, Kiss. The film marks the directorial debut of dance choreographer, Sathish Krishnan. Preethi Aasrani plays the female lead, supported by Prabhu, Devayani, VTV Ganesh, Matthew Varghese and Rao Ramesh. Cinematography is by Harish Kannan and music by Jen Martin. Kiss will release theatrically on 18 September. Romeo Pictures are currently negotiating the sale of OTT rights for the film.

Vettrimaran’s Simbhu starrer to launch next month.

Work on the Silambarasan-Vettrimaran collaboration is set to begin on 15 September. Although not a sequel to Vada Chennai, as was speculated by the media, the film does expand the world of Vada Chennai. Produced by Kalaipuli S. Dhanu, the film also stars Andrea Jeremiah, Samuthirakani and Kishore. Vettrimaran confirmed that he does have a script for Vada Chennai 2, but that will have to have Dhanush in the lead role.

Madhan Bob passes away

Popular comedian and music composer Madhan Bob (real name S. Krishnamoorthy) passed away on Saturday, 02 August 2025 after losing his fight against cancer. Tributes have been pouring in from Film personalities and those associated with the industry. Madhan Bob had appeared in more than 600 films in his acting career.

Celebration and Consternation over the 71^st National Award winners

M.S. Bhaskar has won the National Award for Best Actor in a Supporting role for his role in Ramkumar Balakrishnan’s direcorial debut, Parking. The film also won Best Tamil Film and Best Screenplay for Ramkumar Balakrishnan.   G.V. Prakash Kumar won the Best Music Award for Vaathi.

The celebrations have been dampened by the increasingly louder voices against the criteria used for selecting winners of this prestigious award. Many film critics and film personalities are questioning why Aadujeevitham (The Goat Life) was not even nominated despite the international critical acclaim it received.

In the Tamil film world, many are asking how films like Viduthalai Part 1 and Chiththa did not get a nomination in any category. Equally baffling is that M.Sasikumar’s Ayothi also failed to feature in any of the nominations.

It seems to many that National Film Awards are now looking more favourably at commercial films instead of those that achieve artistic excellence in their respective fields.