3 min readHyderabadJul 22, 2026 04:13 PM IST
Dawn Pictures founder and producer Aakash Bhaskaran has acknowledged that Parasakthi, the Sivakarthikeyan-starrer directed by Sudha Kongara, did not perform as expected at the box office and that the production house was unable to honour its profit-sharing commitment with the actor as a result. In the same conversation, he revealed that Dhanush received the full amount promised for Idli Kadai because that film was made on a comparatively smaller budget and was a profitable venture.
“I have done both Parasakthi and Idli Kadai in profit-sharing mode. For Parasakthi, we were not able to honour the profit sharing, as the film didn’t do well comparing to its high-scale budget. For Idli Kadai, we gave Dhanush sir what we had promised, as it’s relatively less in budget and it’s a profitable venture for us,” Bhaskaran said in an interview with Touring Talkies.
When asked why Parasakthi did not meet expectations, the producer pointed to a combination of factors. “It’s due to the controversy around it, like the clash, the censor issues and the high expectations,” he said.
Parasakthi, a political action drama set during the 1965 anti-Hindi agitations in Tamil Nadu, was one of the most ambitious Tamil films of recent years. Directed by Sudha Kongara, who had previously delivered Soorarai Pottru and Irudhi Suttru, the film starred Sivakarthikeyan in the lead alongside Jayam Ravi, Atharvaa, Sreeleela, Rana Daggubati, Guru Somasundaram and Basil Joseph. It was shot across real locations, with Bhaskaran himself comparing its scale to RRR during the production phase.
The film released on January 10, during the Pongal window. It benefited from the postponement of Vijay’s Jana Nayagan, which had been scheduled for the same period but was delayed due to the CBFC row. Despite a solo release and strong opening-day advance bookings exceeding Rs 10 crore, Parasakthi collected Rs 85 worldwide across its theatrical run, according to Sacnilk. Against a budget that required a Rs 200 crore gross to break even, those numbers represented a clear shortfall.
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The “controversy” Bhaskaran referred to includes the film’s troubled certification process. The CBFC reportedly raised objections to certain political depictions in the film, leading to cuts and modifications before clearance. There were also reports of clashes with other Pongal releases and debates around the film’s historical accuracy, all of which affected the buzz in the crucial opening week.
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Idli Kadai, by contrast, was a safer bet financially. Written, directed and co-produced by Dhanush under Wunderbar Films in association with Dawn Pictures, the film was a family drama about a chef who returns to his father’s village eatery after years abroad. It released on October 1, and collected approximately Rs 71 crore worldwide. While it did not set any records and faced competition from Kantara: Chapter 1, its relatively modest budget meant the margins worked in the production house’s favour.
For Aakash Bhaskaran and Dawn Pictures, which launched in 2024 and has positioned itself as a major production house in Tamil cinema, the Parasakthi experience is an early and expensive lesson in scale versus sustainability.
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