Cine News Digest – 07 Sep 2025

Rajinikanth’s Coolie to release on OTT this week

Rajinikanth’s Lokesh Kanagraj directorial, Coolie is set to release on Amazon Prime on 11 September 2025 in Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada.

Despite having been denied a release on IMAX, an “Adults Only” certification and a coordinated negativity campaign after the film’s release, the film set several records and remains the biggest Tamil grosser of this year and the fourth highest grosser of all time after 2.0, Jailer and Leo.

Coolie raked in 150 crores worldwide on its first day of release and crossed 500 crores in 14 days.

The film stars Rajinikanth, Nagarjunna Akkineni, Soubin Shahir, Upendra, Shruti Hassan, Sathyaraj, Rachita Ram and cameo appearances by Aamir Khan and Pooja Hegde.

Vijay Antony’s nephew leads the cast in Pookie

Vijay Antony’s nephew, Ajay Dhishan, who made his screen debut playing Thamizharivu in the recently released Vijay Antony starrer, Maargan, will make his debut as a lead actor in the forthcoming film Pookie. The film is directed by cinematographer-turned-director, Ganesh Chandra, who earlier directed Jolly o Gymkhana and Enakku Thozhil Romance. The film will also feature Sunil in an important role that marks a fresh breakaway from his recent negative roles. Vijay Antony scores the music.

Rajesh M Selva directs Shradda Sarath in new web series

Rajesh M Selva, the director of Kamalhaasan’s Thoongavanam and Vikram’s Kadaram Kondaan, is gearing up for the release of his second web series. Titled The Game: You Never play Alone, a mystery thriller that has Shradda Srinath in the lead role. Sradda Srinath’s impressive screen credits include Vikram Vedha, Ner Konda Paarvai, Maara and Irugappatru. Her next big screen release will be the Ravi Mohan starrer, Bro Code.

The Game: You Never play Alone also stars Prathap, Chandini, Bala Hasan, Subash Selvam and Dheeraj. It begins streaming on Netflix on 02 October 2025.

Director Ravikumar teams up with Soori

Ravikumar, the director of Sivakarthikeyan’s Ayalaan and Vishnu Vishal’s Indru Netru Naalai has commenced casting for his next untitled film. Soori will play the lead role, while the rest of the cast and crew are currently being negotiated.

Jiiva’s 47^th film to be directed by M. Rajesh

M. Rajesh, the director made an impressive debut with Siva Manasula Sakthi has thus far directed 9 films – including Boss Engira Bhaskaran, Oru Kal oru Kannadi and Mr Local has signed on his 10^th directorial that will have Jiiva playing the lead role in his 47^th film. Yuvanshankar Raja will score the music