Like director Shankar, Mani Ratnam has also been grappling with a persistent issue — the lack of strong writing collaborators.
The shortage of skilled scriptwriters for top directors continues to be a major challenge in the Indian film industry.
Shankar’s self-written Indian 2 was widely criticized and failed at the box office. For Game Changer, he relied on a script by fellow director Karthik Subbaraj, but that film turned out to be an even bigger disaster.
Mani Ratnam is no exception. In recent years, he too has struggled to develop compelling original scripts.
His major success with Ponniyin Selvan came largely from adapting a celebrated Tamil novel.
Without that literary foundation, the outcome might have been very different. This struggle is also apparent in Thug Life, for which he did not write the story himself.
The core story of Thug Life was originally penned by Kamal Haasan nearly a decade ago.
He had planned to direct it in Hindi under the title Amar Hai, with Saif Ali Khan in the lead. Mani Ratnam later took over the project, reworking the script and casting Simbu as the protagonist, Amar.
However, Mani Ratnam ultimately failed to do justice to Kamal Haasan’s original concept, and Thug Life ended up as a major box office disappointment.
So why does SS Rajamouli continue to deliver consistent blockbusters?
The answer lies in his strong writing team, led by his father Vijayendra Prasad and supported by collaborators like SS Kanchi.
In contrast, directors like Shankar and Mani Ratnam are struggling to replicate such success due to the lack of solid writing support.
