Enthiran 2.0: Thalaivar Rajinikanth's tryst with the sci-fi genre

Superstar Rajinikanth and director Shankar teamed up for the first time in 2007 for Sivaji. The film was a blockbuster when it released. Three years later, the gargantuan director roped in Rajinikanth once again for the ambitious sci-fi drama Enthiran. While the sequel to the 2010 blockbuster will release in 2017, we take a look at the phenomenon that Enthiran was.

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In Enthiran, Thalaivar was playing dual roles for the eighth time but it was the for the first time that he played a robot on 70mm.

Director Shankar landed a casting coup when he roped in the world's most beautiful woman Aishwarya Rai Bachchan to play Rajinikanth's leading lady. The music was composed by Academy Award winner AR Rahman, who made Rajinikanth and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan dance to his tunes.

As the film was first of its kind, Shankar brought in some of the visual expertise from the US and Hong Kong lent their expertise for the film's complex and never-before-seen animatronics and prosthetics.
Enthiran was made on a lavish budget more than 100 crores and was the most anticipated film of 2010. It was also the costliest Indian film back then.

At 60, Rajinikanth patiently sat through hours of prosthetic makeup and shot for the film's difficult scenes which had the protagonist Rajini and robot Rajini.

The film boasted of some of the most innovatively choreographed and complex action sequences. Enthiran, which was made in Tamil and dubbed in Hindi and Telugu released across 2,250 screens in India. After the release, it turned out to be the third highest grossing Tamil film of all time and made a whopping Rs 350 crore worldwide.

Enthiran bagged the National Award for the Best Special Effects and Best Production Design in 2010. Enthiran's Computer Generated Imagery (CGI) was light years ahead of sci-fi flicks in Bollywood including Krrish and Ra.One.

In fact, Shah Rukh Khan, who was also bitten by the Chitti bug, ensured that Chitti was featured in a cameo in Ra.One (2011).

However, the film's story was based on the age-old Frankenstein saga where man's own creation turns on him. Thalaivar effortlessly traversed between the roles of a scientist Vaseegaran and the comical and villainous Chitti. In 2017, Thalaivar and director Shankar will be all set to unleash Chitti in 2.0. The sequel only gets bigger and better with Rajinikanth all set to lock horns with Bollywood superstar Akshay Kumar, who plays the menacing villain.