Atlee (director)

Atlee
Atlee at the 8th Vijay Awards, 2014
Born	Arun Kumar (1986-09-21) September 21, 1986 Madurai, Tamil Nadu, India
Education	Sathyabama University
Occupation(s)	Film director, screenwriter, producer
Years active	2010 - present
Spouse	Krishna Priya (m. 2014)
Website	Official Page

Atlee (born 21 September 1986 as Arun Kumar) is an Indian film director and screenwriter who works primarily in Tamil cinema. He is best known for his directorial debut Raja Rani (2013), produced by Fox Star Studios, for which he was awarded the Vijay Award for Best Debut Director. He worked as an assistant director under filmmaker S. Shankar for the films Enthiran (2010) and Nanban (2012). His Second film was with Ilayathalapathi Vijay titled as Theri which was a Blockbuster became second highest grossing South Indian film of 2016. His third film is again with Vijay and it is 61st film which named Mersal, produced by Sri Thenandal Films. Shooting of the film started from 1 February 2017.,

Career

Born in Madurai, Atlee spent all his "growing years" in Chennai. Atlee, aka Arun Kumar, did his Visual Communications at Sathyabhama University. He worked with director Shankar for 5 years, acting as the associate director for massive, landmark films such as Enthiran and Nanban.

He began his career as an assistant director in Enthiran (2010) under director S. Shankar and he continued to work with him in his next project Nanban (2012), a remake of the Hindi film 3 Idiots. In 2013, he made his directional debut through Raja Rani. The film was produced by Fox Star Studios and AR Murugadoss. It was a romantic comedy featuring Arya, Jai, Nayantara, Nazriya Nazim and Sathyaraj. He was appreciated for pulling off a stellar ensemble cast successfully in his very first film. Raja Rani eventually emerged a huge success after earning over 500 million from the South Indian box office within four weeks. It also has won him the Vijay Award for Best Debut Director. Atlee's latest directorial film is Theri, which has an ensemble cast; Vijay, Samantha, Baby Nainika and Amy Jackson has become Second highest grossing Tamil film for the year 2016 grossing Rs. 175 CR and result into profitable tamil film of the year.

He started his own production house called A for Apple Production and jointly produced his first film with Fox Star Studios name of movie is Sangili Bungili Kadhava Thorae is horror comedy film written and directed by Ike Radha and starring Jiiva, Sridivya and Soori. However the film performed negatively at the box office. He is going to shoot a film with Vijay, Nithya Menon , Kajal Aggarwal and Samantha and music director is A. R. Rahman.

Personal life

After courting for about 8 years, Atlee was engaged to actress Krishna Priya, whom he married in November 2014.

Filmography

Year	Film	Credited as				Language	Genre	Notes
		Director	Producer	Writer	Other Works
2007	Mugaputhagam	Yes	Yes (Uncredited)	Yes	No	Tamil	romantic comedy thriller film	Short film Youtube Link on YouTube
2010	Enthiran	No	No	No	Yes	Tamil	science fiction film	Assistant director
2012	Nanban	No	No	No	Yes	Tamil	coming-of-age comedy film	Assistant director It is a remake of Rajkumar Hirani's 3 Idiots
2013	Raja Rani	Yes	No	Yes	No	Tamil	romantic comedy film	Inspired by Mani Ratnam`S Mouna Ragam
2016	Theri	Yes	No	Yes	No	Tamil	action thriller film	Inspired by Mani Ratnam`S Chatriyan
2017	Sangili Bungili Kadhava Thorae	No	Yes	No	No	Tamil	horror comedy film	Co produced with Fox Star Studios
	Mersal	Yes	No	Yes	No	Tamil	period thriller film	Story co written with K. V. Vijayendra Prasad Baahubali story writer

Frequent collaborators

Casting

Actor	Mugaputhagam (2007)	Raja Rani (2013)	Theri (2016)	Mersal (2017)	Total
Sathyaraj		Y		Y	2
Vijay			Y	Y	2
Motta Rajendran	Y	Y	Y	Y	4
Samantha Ruth Prabhu			Y	Y	2
Swaminathan		Y	Y		2
Manobala		Y	Y		2
Sathyan		Y		Y	2
Misha Ghoshal		Y		Y	2

Atlee also worked with Arya, Jai, Nazriya Nazim, Nayanthara, and Santhanam in Raja Rani. Prabhu, Raadhika Sarathkumar, and Kaali Venkat director J. Mahendran (Mullum Malarum and Uthiripookkal) Negative role in theri and he currently working in Mersal with Kajal Aggarwal, Vadivelu, Kovai Sarala, Yogi Babu and Cheenu Mohan. he create three director as antagonist in his film J. Mahendran (Mullum Malarum and Uthiripookkal) played main antagonist in Theri, Azhagam Perumal (Dumm Dumm Dumm and Udhaya) in played side antagonist in Theri and S. J. Surya most powerfull antagonist work in Mersal. He also worked with Sivakarthikeyan and Sathish in many short films especially in Mugaputhagam and it`s turning point for Atlee's, Shivakarthikeyan's and Sathish's career in the silver screen. In Raja Rani, it is claimed that Sivakarthikeyan was about to play as Surya (Ex-Lover of Regina) with Nayanthara but he got replaced by Jai due to Shivakarthikeyan's tight schedule of films.

Crew

Actor	Mugaputhagam (2007)	Raja Rani (2013)	Theri (2016)	Mersal (2017)	Total
A. R. Rahman (Composer)				Y	1
G. V. Prakash Kumar (Composer)		Y	Y		2
Ruben (Editor)		Y	Y		2
S. Ramana Girivasan (Dialogue Writer)			Y	Y	2
Dhilip Subbarayan (Stunts Director)		Y	Y		2
G.K. Vishnu (Cinematography)	Y (Assistant Cinematography)			Y	2
T. Muthuraj (Art Director)		Y	Y	Y	3
Tapas Nayak (Sound Designer)		Y	Y	Y	3
George C. Williams (Cinematography)	Y	Y	Y	Y	4