Kathanar – The Wild Sorcerer

Kathanar – The Wild Sorcerer is an upcoming Indian Malayalam-language fantasy thriller film directed and edited by Rojin Thomas and written by R. Ramanand. It is the first of two cinematic parts. The story traces the life of Kadamattathu Kathanar, a legendary 9th-century Christian priest endowed with magical powers. The film stars Jayasurya in the titular role, along with Prabhu Deva, Anushka Shetty (in her Mollywood debut) and Vineeth. It is produced by Gokulam Gopalan of Sree Gokulam Movies.

Principal photography began in April 2023. The film is shot using the virtual production technology in a custom-built studio.

Kathanar – The Wild Sorcerer is planned to be released on December 2024.

Cast

 * Jayasurya as Kadamattathu Kathanar
 * Prabhu Deva
 * Anushka Shetty
 * Vineeth
 * Sandy
 * Nitish Bharadwaj
 * Kulpreet Yadav
 * Sanoop Santhosh

Development
The film is based on the story of legendary 9th-century Christian priest Kadamattathu Kathanar. The film was initially planned to be produced by Vijay Babu of Friday Film House, with whom Rojin Thomas had previously collaborated in two films. However, in March 2020, it was announced that the project has been taken over by Gokulam Gopalan of Sree Gokulam Movies. It was also reported that the film would be released in two parts and is mounted on a budget of ₹100 crore. According to Rojin, the film falls under "period fantasy thriller" genre.

Filming
Principal photography began on 5 April 2023 in Cochin. It was held at a custom-built studio spanning 45000 sqft, utilizing virtual production technology. The first schedule was completed on 2 June 2023 after 43 days. Around 570 personnel worked in various departments.

Release
The first part of Kathanar – The Wild Sorcerer is scheduled to be released on December 2024. Alongside the original Malayalam version, the makers are planning to release the film in multiple dubbed languages, including English, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Hindi, Bengali, Chinese, French, Korean, Italian, Russian, Indonesian, and Japanese.