Sivaji Productions

History

Sivaji Productions company is owned by Prabhu Ganesan and his brother Ramkumar Ganesan. It is named after their father, the thespian Sivaji Ganesan. Notable films released under their banner includes Chandramukhi and Delhii Heights.

Sivaji Productions was started in 1956 by Dr. Sivaji Ganesan and his brother Sri V.C. Shanmugam. It was first started as a distribution company and distributed many of Dr. Sivaji's movies. In 1958, Sivaji Productions co-produced its first film Amardeep which was a Hindi remake of Amardeepam. Its first solo production was Vietnam Veedu in 1969 with Dr. Sivaji in the lead role.

Since then, Sivaji Productions has produced about 18 films till date. The last being Chandramukhi-the biggest blockbuster of 2005 and the longest run film in South India.

After Sri V.C. Shanmugam’s death in 1986, Dr. Sivaji's son Mr. G.Ramkumar took over Sivaji Productions.

Sivaji Productions has also ventured into the production of television serials. It has produced two serials, Kokila engey Pogirral in Tamil and Seethama Maeyamma in Telugu and is currently producing a Tamil serial called Thavam for Kalaingar TV.

Chandramukhi was the 50th film produced by Sivaji Productions. During the success meet of Mannan (1992), Rajinikanth announced that he would act in Sivaji Productions' 50th film. In September 2004, Rajinikanth congratulated P. Vasu on the success of Apthamitra (2004) and was impressed with the film's screenplay. Vasu narrated a story of the film to Rajinikanth. Rajinikanth later called Ramkumar Ganesan and asked him to do the film in Tamil under Ramkumar's home production banner, Sivaji Productions.

Ramkumar telephoned Vasu, who was offering worship in a temple in Guruvayoor at that time, informing him of Rajinikanth's wish to do Apthamitra in Tamil under his direction. Vasu reworked the script he wrote for Apthamitra to suit Rajinikanth's style of acting. The film dealt mainly with the concept of dissociative identity disorder, commonly known as "multiple personality disorder" (MPD) or "split personality syndrome". The film received positive reviews from critics and became a successful venture at the box-office.

Their next project was initially announced with Gautham Menon as director. However, the film's production failed to take off, with repeated dates being announced by the directors for the film's first schedule throughout 2009. Subsequently, Menon was removed from the project by the producers due to the film's inactivity, with directors Dharani, Vishnuvardhan and Saran leading the race to take over.

In January 2009, the film was reannounced as Asal by Prabhu and the story was subsequently changed with Saran being signed up as the film's director. The film received negative reviews from critics and became a failure at box-office.