Director Bala’s Varmaa, which was scrapped and remade by another director as Adithya Varma, released online on Tuesday. However, just hours after its release, the film was leaked on notorious piracy website TamilRockers.
The India streaming platforms for Varmaa are The Ally, Shreyas ET and Shemaroo Me while the overseas streaming platforms are Simply South and Tentkotta.
This version of the film stars Dhruv Vikram and Megha while Adithya Varma, which was released in theatres on November 22, starred Dhruv and Banita Sandhu. The latter film was directed by Gireesaaya. Both films are the Tamil remakes of the Telugu blockbuster Arjun Reddy. The film is about a brilliant doctor who has anger management issues and his descent into depression and addiction.
Dhruv, son of popular actor Vikram, was to make his debut with Varmaa. However, the producers E4 Entertainment called for a press meet in February 2019 and announced that they would completely reshoot the film as they were not happy with what Bala had delivered. Bala and Vikram share a close association, with the director having given the actor his big break through Sethu.
Although Dhruv won praise for his performance in Adithya Varma, the film did not do well at the box-office. The original, starring Vijay Deverakonda, had enjoyed a good run in the southern states and was also remade in Hindi as Kabir Singh, another blockbuster. Though the films generated a lot of criticism, particularly for the treatment of the female lead and the romanticisation of violence against women, it has been popular with young people. Since Adithya Varma didn't do well, fans of director Bala demanded that his version of the film be released.
A few days ago, new releases Nishabdham and Ka Pae Ranasingam were also released on TamilRockers a few hours after they came out on OTT. While Nishabdham was released on Amazon Prime Video, Ka Pae Ranasingam came out on Zee Plex for pay-per-view at Rs 199. Film industries have been fighting an uphill battle against piracy, particularly in Tamil cinema. However, TamilRockers continues to have the upper hand.