At one moment in the Vilaayath Budha teaser, a police officer tells Prithviraj Sukumaran's character whether he thinks of himself as Pushpa. Pop comes the reply, "No, sir, he is international. I am just local." This line, and the slight similarity in the plot of Vilaayath Budha and Allu Arjun's Pushpa franchise, revolving around sandalwood smuggler heroes, has drown some comparison between the two films. At a recent promotional event for his upcoming film, Prithviraj clarified that his Ayyappanum Koshiyum director Sachy brought the project to him long before Pushpa and that by the time the makers wrapped its production, both films in Allu Arjun and Sukumar's franchise had been released. As a result, Prithviraj shared that he and his makers were aware of the similarity between both films, hence the film's teaser made a reference to Pushpa as an acknowledgement of the same. However, Prithviraj also added that the said reference might not even make it to the film's final version.
Vilaayath Budha is directed by Jayan Nambiar from a screenplay by GR Indugopan and Rajesh Pinnadan. Jayan served as an assistant director on Ayyappanum Koshiyum. Produced by Sandip Senan and AV Anoop, the film is set to release on November 21, Friday. It also stars Shammi Thilakan in an important role. On the technical front, it has cinematography by Arvind S Kashyap, music by Jakes Bejoy, and editing by Sreejith Sarang.
