'Ulaganayagan' Kamal Haasan's Vikram is set to become the biggest Tamil blockbuster of 2022 and continues to go strong at the box office. The action thriller directed by Lokesh Kanagaraj showed the iconic actor reprising his role as Agent Vikram from the 1986 film of the same title and pitched him against 'Makkal Selvan' Vijay Sethupathi, while Fahadh Faasil played the role of a black-ops squad commander, with Suriya making a cameo as Rolex, the kingpin of a drug syndicate, and Karthi's character Dilli from Kaithi as well being teased in the form of a voiceover. That being said, there was much talk about the inclusion of Kamal Haasan's de-aging portions being used in Vikram, about which Lokesh Kanagaraj recently opened up in an exclusive interview with National Award-winning film critic Baradwaj Rangan, the Editor-in-Chief of Galatta Plus.
Speaking about why the de-aging portions of Kamal Haasan were not featured in Vikram, Lokesh Kanagaraj revealed, "The use of the technology was never a rumor. It is still in process. You'll get to see it a little later. Not in this film or on any OTT platform, but it will be released as separate exclusive footage. It will probably come out in Kamal sir's Vikram metaverse (NFTs). Either way, I'll let people know at the time since it will have an independent release."
Lokesh Kanagaraj further said, "This is because there were a lot of inputs that went into the process and we worked extensively on it. Initially, we decided to use the de-aging technology, the entire production was okay with the idea and they never set any restrictions for it. For one minute of de-aging footage, it would cost around 7 crores when we spoke to people in the US and the UK. That was so huge. Even they were a little doubtful whether they would be able to get it done keeping in mind the theatrical release date of the film. We didn't have the heart to let go of the work nor did we feel like abandoning the idea altogether. So, we brought in people who worked on the VFX for Maanagaram and we began developing this idea. We made it clear that the budget will be limited and we require 60 seconds of footage that needs to be worked on. We then arrived at a budget of 2 crores and started working on it. After that, we shot Kamal sir's CG portions and we also brought on board a company from Bangalore. We captured his emotions via motion capture and that alone took three days for us to complete."
Watch Lokesh Kanagaraj talk about Kamal Haasan's de-aging portions in Vikram in the video below: