Theatres strike was called off this evening, and all the theatres in Tamil Nadu are going to reopen tomorrow (7th July). Though there are no new Tamil film releases this week, the films which were already running, like, Vanamagan, Maragadha Naanayam, Ivan Thanthiran and few other films would continue their run. The teams of Vanamagan and Ivan Thanthiran had a joint press meet this evening to express their thanks and wishes to the audience and media for being a constant support throughout this theatre shutdown issue.
Director Vijay, in his speech, said, "What Vijay sir told me, during Thalaivaa time, became true and I want to recollect that. He used to say, 'a film's victory or failure shouldn't be determined by the situations, but by the audience. Unfortunately, both our film's success (Vanamagan and Ivan Thanthiran), was determined by the situations, which we didn't have any control over. Myself and Kannan sir produced this film out of passion for cinema, though we didn't know anything about production. People like my father (A.L.Alagappan), and Dhananjayan sir were there to guide us, but situations didn't work in our favour. Vanamagan started pretty well in the second weekend more than the first, and when we just thought the collections are going to get better, the strike was announced, and we were pushed to a very bad state. The past four days have been very painful, not just for me, but for everyone who worked in both these films.
Four years back when Thalaivaa faced release issue problems here, it got released in other centers on August 9th, while in TN, it released only on 21st August. It was a bad phase for all of us, and many piracy sites uploaded the film, and there were numerous downloads even before the film could release here. After all the problems had been sorted out, after sending all the KDM's and other things to all the theatres, I went to a restaurant on 20th August. There was a father, who came to the restaurant along with his little daughter. That father spotted me to be Thalaivaa's director, and he started to converse with his daughter. He told her, 'let us go for Thalaivaa movie tomorrow in theatre' and it made me feel happy. But within a fraction of a second, the girl replied, 'why should we watch it again pa?, we have already watched it thrice in CD'. It is the same kind of pain that I had now during this theatre shutdown for Vanamagan. At this point of time, I should thank Ravi sir, because, without him, the film wouldn't have released and he was there throughout the entire issue that we faced before the film's release. Watch our films in theatres, not just these two, but all the other films, which were the victims of this issue, and support us. Our victory is in your hands."