'Annaatthe' is Rajinikanth’s next movie

Annaatthe (elder brother) is the title of Tamil superstar Rajinikanth’s 168th movie to be released later this year. The movie, bankrolled by Sun Pictures, will be directed by ‘Siruthai’ Siva, the filmmaker who directed popular actor Ajith in four movies.

The title motion poster of the movie was released on Monday evening on YouTube by the production house Sun Pictures, which is associating itself with the superstar for the third time.

The minute-long video went viral immediately on social media with more than 15,000 people watching in the first 30 minutes after it was uploaded.

The movie, which was hitherto known as ‘Thalaivar 168’, will see Rajinikanth and actress Khushboo pair together on the screen after over two decades. Keerthi Suresh, whose stupendous performance in the biopic of yesteryear actress Savithri evoked rave reviews, will be the lady love of Rajinikanth in the movie, music for which is scored by D Imaan.

Annaatthe is likely to be released later this year and will come on the heels of the release of Darbar, which didn’t do well at the box office as expected. The 168th movie is being closely watched in the movie and political circles as Rajinikanth is expected to take the political plunge by the end of this year.

The superstar has already announced that he will be launching a political party that will contest the 2021 assembly polls in Tamil Nadu. Darbar landed in controversy after distributors of the movie came out in the open to call the movie a failure in terms of collections.

Though the distributors wanted Rajinikanth to compensate for their losses, the actor, who had helped the distributors overcome losses incurred due to his movies earlier, maintains a studied silence till now.