Kamal Haasan, S Shankar confirm Indian 3: ‘Our initial idea was to do only one film, but…’

Kamal then said that at a time when filmmakers struggle to find banners to back one film, Shankar managed to get Lyca Productions, a banner that was ready to support both the film he had envisioned. “I’m very sure we would have given him hell and said, no, let’s make one film that was there in his mind. And above all, like I was ready to do that. There are many competent directors who are waiting for the right producer to make one film. He got the opportunity to make two. Why not use it? That’s what he must have thought. That’s what I think,” he said.

On this, the filmmaker said that even he had only one film (Indian 2) in his mind, but Indian 3 evolved as the film was being shot. He said, “I would like to explain. Because the part one only revolves around one state. That part one itself is 3 hours 20 minutes film. Now the story spreads all over the country, to all the states. So naturally the story has become big. Actually, our initial idea was to do only one part.”

“(However), after we started filming and when I sat in the editing room, all the scenes from my point of view came out very well. If I compress the whole thing (to make one film) the soul of each and every scene, the feel of every scene would have been lost. All the scenes were looking good and it was not boring. That’s when I realised that I was able to see there are two parts in that story. And each part has its own strength and whole form and engaging scenes and a start, a body and a climax. So it evolved automatically in two parts,” Shankar concluded.