Malayalam filmmaker Jeethu Joseph recently spoke about the success of Dominic Arun’s Kalyani Priyadarshan-starrer Lokah: Chapter 1—Chandra at an event. Speaking at a promotional event for his upcoming film Mirage, he warned filmmakers from jumping on the superhero bandwagon post Lokah’s success.

Jeethu Joseph warns filmmakers from jumping on superhero bandwagon

Jeethu stated at the event that once a film of a particular genre becomes a hit, filmmakers look to capitalise on the trend. However, he stated that the film industry can only thrive on variety. “An industry should have movies from different genres. What usually happens is that when a film in one genre becomes a superhit, everyone jumps in to make the same. With Lokah’s success, now the risk is that everyone will start doing superhero movies. That’s not the right thing to do,” he said.

Jeethu mentioned that now that Lokah has found success, the challenge was to experiment with other genres and make them work too. Dismissing that films like Lokah needed to be categorised as female-led, he said, “There should be no such classification in cinema. If an actor—man or woman—does a character well and the audience connects, it will succeed. This has been proved before, now, and will continue in the future. That’s what happened in Lokah, too,” he explained.

Lokah Chapter 1 is a superhero film directed by Dominic Arun and produced by Dulquer Salmaan. The film is meant to launch Dulquer’s Wayfarer Cinematic Universe. Having grosses over ₹200 crore worldwide, Lokah is the third-highest-grossing Malayalam film this year.

Jeethu Joseph feels stuck making thrillers

Jeethu stated that he has been making back-to-back thrillers since Drishyam because that’s what is expected of him. However, he hopes to make a children’s film someday. “But I love to try all kinds of films. One of the subjects I’m working on now is a children’s film. Maybe such movies will happen in two or three years,” he said, adding that he would love to direct a multi-hero film too.

Jeethu’s Mirage stars Asif Ali and Aparna Balamurali and will be released in theatres on 19 September. He also has Valathu Vashathe Kallan lined up for release, along with Drishyam 3 and Ram: Part 1 with Mohalal.