Among the Christmas releases coming out this Friday is Ranjith Sankar’s Pretham-2, a sequel to 2016’s Pretham, which had Jayasurya playing a mentalist investigating a supernatural phenomenon affecting the three main characters.

Though Jayasurya is reprising his role in the sequel, the supporting cast will be different this time. In place of Aju Varghese, Sharaf U Dheen, Govind Padmasoorya and Dharmajan Bolgatty are Dain Davis, Sidhartha Siva, Durga Krishna, Amit Chakkalakkal and Sania Iyapan. Pretham-2 is produced jointly by Ranjith Sankar and Jayasurya and distributed by the duo’s Punyalan Cinemas.

Known for being one of the fastest directors in Malayalam cinema, Ranjith Sankar has made Pretham-2 with the same speed he made his earlier films. “We had plans to do a sequel in case the first one worked out. We were waiting for a story that would justify the existence of a sequel. When the right story came along, we immediately figured out everything and went into production,” he says.

Though horror is a big genre, Ranjith thinks it hasn’t been explored that much in Malayalam cinema. “It’s all about blending nicely all the elements necessary for a genre and trying to make it work. Once we get that right, the film should work well commercially. Pretham was a horror-comedy and everything turned out well in it. In Pretham-2, there is fun, humour, suspense, and horror all packaged neatly in what is essentially a holiday entertainer.”

When asked if he is planning to make a third one, he says, “As of now, I have thought about it. Everything depends on the success and revenue of this part. Don Bosco can be put in different scenarios, with different characters and different mysteries to solve.”

Like Pretham, the sequel is also being targeted primarily at a young audience. As part of the promotions, the Pretham-2 team came up with the idea of a Tik Tok contest on social media, which was kicked off by Sania Iyappan.