As Raja Rani completes 6 years, we give you some inside information and rare stills from the sets of Atlee's debut film.

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6 Years of Raja Rani: Rare pictures from the film's sets ft. Nayanthara, Arya, and Atlee, and interesting trivia about the film

Team CE

Published:27th Sep, 2019 at 10:18 AM

In early 2012, Atlee Kumar, an assistant director to Shankar, narrated his script to Rama Narayanan, who agreed to finance the film. The film later went to AR Murugadoss-headed Fox star studios.

Atlee revealed he wrote the script with Arya in mind to portray the lead role, and was insistent on signing Nayantara as the female lead as he felt they made a good on-screen pair.

'At my age I thought I should tell a relatable love story; we hear many such stories, so I thought mine should be unique and came up with the husband and wife angle,' Atlee, on developing the script.

Atlee had initially cast Sivakarthikeyan to portray a role in the film, but subsequently chose Jai to appear as Nayanthara's love interest in a flashback segment.

Priya Anand was considered another leading role, but the opportunity was later offered to Nazriya Nazim who had made her Tamil debut with Neram (2013).

Raja Rani had art direction by T. Muthuraj and cinematography by debutant George C. Williams, a former associate of Nirav Shah

All the sequence involving Jai and Nayantara were completed first,as Arya joined the team omly after completing his work on Selvaraghavan's Irandam Ulagam.

All the sequence involving Jai and Nayantara were completed first,as Arya joined the team omly after completing his work on Selvaraghavan's Irandam Ulagam.

Raja Rani's sound-track for the film was widely acclaimed, with 4 out of 5 songs going onto become chart-busters.

The lyrics for the film were penned by Na. Muthukumar, Pa. Vijay and Gaana Bala.

A song, Angnyaade, from the sound track, which went viral on FM stations, wasn't featured in the final cut in the film. However, a making video for the song was later released.

The first official teaser of the film showing the lead pair quarreling through their projections on a mirror, was released in May 2013, and went instantly viral.

Upon release, many noted that the film draws similarities to Mani Ratnam's Mouna Ragam and the Kannada film Milana.

The film released in 350 screens in Tamil Nadu.and earned approximately ₹ 32 million on its first day, which's said to be Arya's best ever opening.

Raja Rani eventually emerged a huge success after earning over ₹500 million (US$7.2 million) from the South Indian box office within four weeks.

The Telugu dubbed version too was a success grossing ₹40 million (US$580,000) on its opening weekend and ₹120 million (US$1.7 million) in its lifetime.

Raja Rani thus emerged as the third blockbuster in Arya's career after Arinthum Ariyamalum and Boss Engira Bhaskaran as well as the fifth most successful film of the year.

Raja Rani was remade in Bengali as Shudhu Tomari Jonyo in 2015, with Dev reprising Arya's role, Srabanti playing Nayantara's role, Soham Chakraborty in Jai's role & Mimi Chakraborty in Nazriya's role.

It was also remade in 2016 in Odia as Tu Je Sei starring Babushan.

Raja Rani won the Most Popular Film award at the Norway Tamil Film Festival Awards.

Nayanthara won best actress, and Sathyaraj won best supporting actor at the Filmfare Awards South, that year.

Here are a few more working stills from the film...