With simultaneous telecast across 15 television channels, the trailer of Prithviraj’s new movie 9 has become the most viewed Malayalam trailer. Released on Wednesday, the trailer received a massive 7 million views in the first 24 hours.
Directed by Jenuse Mohammed, who had previously directed the Dulquer Salman-Nithya Menon starrer 100 Days of Love, 9 is a horror thriller starring Prithviraj Sukumaran, Prakash Raj, Rahul Madhav, Mamta Mohandas and Wamiqa Gabbi. Apart from being Prithviraj’s first solo venture as a producer, the movie also marks Sony Pictures’ foray into Malayalam cinema.
Shony Panjikaran, the marketing head of Sony Pictures India spoke about the marketing strategy employed by the makers in a Manorama Online report. “Despite Kerala being a top digital market, we realised that the trailers on online platforms are not getting a great reach. In Bollywood, Tamil and Telugu industries the numbers are really huge. We felt that quite a number of our audiences are not coming on digital platforms and there is a much wider audience which we can capture with television in this state. With the TV roadblock done away with, we were able to reach out to more than 20 per cent of the entire population of Kerala at one go. The results are outstanding and the numbers are the first of the kind in Malayalam. A film of this scale really deserves to be seen by many more people and we are glad we could showcase the trailer to such a large section of the audience.”
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He also spoke about how Sony’s decision to venture into Malayalam cinema came about. “Our MD Vivek Krishnamani and Prithviraj were having a casual conversation during which Vivek told Prithvi about Sony’s interest to get into regional cinema and it all started from there. Prithviraj is known for creating good cinema and we are really proud to be associated with someone like him. Obviously, Kerala is known for making great content and I think it is way ahead of the time in creating some amazing cinema, and we are glad to be a small part of the same,” he said.
9 releases on February 14.
Watch the trailer of the movie:
Image Courtesy: YouTube