Ghost-to-cat morphing scene in ‘Aakasha Ganga’ cost ₹12,000 per second, says Vinayan

Director Vinayan has revealed that he was once banned for using computer graphics to recreate Mohanlal and Mammootty in his film ‘Boyfriend’. The filmmaker opened up about the incident at the teaser launch of ‘Manikandan: The Last Avatar’, which is being promoted as Malayalam cinema’s first AI-driven film. Speaking at the event, Vinayan reflected on how far visual technology has come and how difficult working with graphics used to be.

He recalled the challenges he faced while making films in the late 1990s and early 2000s. “When I made ‘Aakasha Ganga’ twenty-six years ago, there’s a scene where Mayoori’s yakshi face morphs into that of a cat. One second of that morphing cost twelve thousand rupees,” he said. He added that during the making of ‘Adbhuthadweep’, shrinking Jagathy Sreekumar’s character Ambili Chettan and making him dance was a huge technical feat. “Today, we could simply feed in a child’s photo and Jagathy Sreekumar’s photo and make him do any dance we want. The possibilities are beyond what we imagine.”

Vinayan said he entered cinema dreaming of these possibilities. He pointed to his film ‘Athishayan’, which featured a concept similar to the Hulk, where a young boy transforms into a giant. “The producer wanted it released in six months. Back then, Hollywood took years to create such visuals. We had small budgets and smaller schedules, so the graphics I envisioned couldn’t be fully realised.”

It was his experiment in ‘Boyfriend’ that created major controversy. “I used CGI to portray both Mammootty and Mohanlal, and that became a huge issue. I was banned for a year or two,” he said. “Today, anyone can create anyone. Mammukka and Mohanlal could theoretically give dates for a hundred films a year. Just give their images and they can ‘act’ with expressions and action sequences greater than anything they’ve done before.”

Vinayan said this shift is inevitable as cinema enters the age of artificial intelligence. “We have wonderful actors, but when we start seeing expressions that go beyond what they naturally do, audiences are going to be shocked. That era is coming. Which means no one can show off anymore. Cinema and technology are moving into a time where technicians can create everything at their fingertips.”