Eega () is a 2012 Indian Telugu-language fantasy action film written and directed by S. S. Rajamouli. The film was produced by Sai Korrapati under Vaaraahi Chalana Chitram. It was filmed simultaneously in Tamil with the title Naan Ee (). The film stars Nani, Sudeepa and Samantha. M. M. Keeravani composed the songs and the background score, while K. K. Senthil Kumar was the director of photography. Janardhana Maharshi and Crazy Mohan wrote the dialogue for the Telugu and Tamil versions, respectively.
The film follows a bedtime story narrated by a father to his daughter. Nani, who is in love with his neighbour Bindu, is murdered by a wealthy industrialist Sudeep, who is attracted to Bindu and considers Nani a rival. Nani reincarnates as a housefly and tries to avenge his death and protect Bindu from an obsessive Sudeep.
The idea for the film originated in the mid-1990s from a conversation in which Rajamouli's father and screenwriter V. Vijayendra Prasad joked with Rajamouli about the idea of a fly seeking revenge against a human. Rajamouli reconsidered the idea after finishing Maryada Ramanna (2010), and developed it into a script. The film's production began on 7 December 2010 at Ramanaidu Studios in Hyderabad. Principal photography began on 22 February 2011 and continued until late February 2012. Makuta VFX and Annapurna Studios oversaw Eega visual effects and digital intermediate process, respectively.
The two versions of the film, alongside a Malayalam-dubbed version titled Eecha, were released on 6 July 2012 on approximately 1,100 screens globally. The performances of the cast, particularly Sudeepa, Nani, and Samantha, along with Rajamouli's direction and the visual effects, received wide critical acclaim upon release. Eega was one of the highest-grossing Telugu films of the year, earning over ₹125 crore on an estimated budget of ₹26–40 crore. Eega won two National Film Awards (Best Feature Film in Telugu and Best Special Effects), five South Filmfare Awards including Best Telugu Film, Best Telugu Director, Best Telugu Actress (Samantha) and Best Telugu Supporting Actor (Sudeepa) and three South Indian International Movie Awards. The film won nine awards, including Most Original Film at the Toronto After Dark Film Festival. Eega was listed among "The 25 Best Foreign Films of the Decade" by The Ringer.
Plot Nani is a lighthearted young man who specializes in manufacturing fireworks. He is deeply in love with his neighbor, Bindu, a talented miniature artist who runs a Non-governmental organization (NGO). Although Bindu secretly reciprocates his feelings, she chooses to conceal them. Seeking corporate funding for her NGO, Bindu visits the office of Sudeep, a wealthy, powerful, and highly narcissistic industrialist. Attracted to Bindu, Sudeep donates ₹15 lakh to her organization to win her favor. However, his subsequent romantic overtures fail because Bindu remains completely oblivious to his intentions. Upon observing Nani and Bindu interacting on the street, Sudeep recognizes their mutual attraction and perceives Nani as a romantic rival.
One evening, after Nani helps Bindu finish a intricate piece of micro-art—a heart locket carved from a pencil lead—Sudeep abducts Nani on his way home. Sudeep strangles him to death, staging the murder as a random vehicular accident. Before dying, Nani vows to seek retribution if Sudeep ever harms Bindu. Unaware of the crime, Bindu confesses her love to Nani over the phone just as he expires. Sudeep leaves the scene undetected, and Nani is immediately reincarnated as a common housefly with no initial memories of his past life.
As a fly, Nani gradually recovers his memories after cross-referencing encounters with both Sudeep and Bindu. He dedicates himself to protecting Bindu and terrorizing Sudeep. When Sudeep invites a grieving Bindu to New Delhi to present her NGO to an education minister for national recognition, Nani causes Sudeep to suffer a sudden car crash on the way to the airport. The fly then scratches the words "I will kill you" onto the shattered windshield, inducing severe paranoia in Sudeep. Later, Nani observes Bindu mourning in her bedroom and reveals his identity by spelling out his name on her desk using her tears. After he communicates the true nature of his murder, Bindu agrees to ally with him. Nani systematically sabotages Sudeep's personal and professional operations, eventually orchestrating a localized fire that burns Sudeep's hidden black money to ashes, leaving him financially ruined.
Sudeep consults a tantric sorcerer, who performs a ritual and reveals that the tormenting housefly is the reincarnation of Nani. Terrified but determined, Sudeep attempts to trap and kill Nani at his residence. The fly eludes the trap, triggering an electrical short circuit that ignites a massive house fire. The tantric priest is killed in the chaos, and Sudeep is left unconscious from smoke inhalation. Nani and Bindu assume Sudeep perished, but he is rescued by his business partner, Adithya. Upon awakening, Sudeep discovers Bindu's complicity with the fly. Desperate for capital to appease his furious investors, Sudeep murders Adithya to fraudulently collect a ₹700 crore corporate insurance policy.
Sudeep forcefully brings Bindu to his mansion to interrogate her, closely followed by Nani. When Bindu attempts to defend herself with a box cutter, Sudeep overpowers her and threatens her life to force Nani to reveal himself. During the confrontation, Nani coordinates with Bindu and severely injures Sudeep using a dropped sewing needle. Following an intense struggle, Sudeep clips Nani's wing and fatally stabs the fly with the same needle. In a final, sacrificial effort, the dying Nani coats his body in household gunpowder, leaps through the flame of a burning match, and dives into a miniature decorative cannon loaded with a steel ball. The cannon fires, launching the projectile directly through Sudeep's chest and into a nearby oxygen cylinder. The resulting massive explosion kills Sudeep and incinerates the mansion.
A surviving Bindu grieves for Nani, later fashioning an amulet out of his detached wing. Sometime later, while traveling, Bindu is harassed by a stalker; Nani, having been reborn once again as a housefly, attacks the aggressor with a needle, signaling his return.
Cast
Production
Origin, scripting, and casting
The idea of Eega originated in the mid-1990s in screenwriter V. Vijayendra Prasad mind. At that time, he was joking about a housefly seeking revenge on a human in a conversation with his son S. S. Rajamouli. Prasad later developed the idea as a script for an English-language film set in 1830s America, in which an African-American boy dies in an attempt to free his family from slavery and is reincarnated as a fly. After completing Maryada Ramanna (2010), Rajamouli reconsidered the concept after thinking of directing a film that was distinct from any other. He decided to make Eega a bilingual film in Telugu and Tamil – each scene including speech was filmed twice, once for each language. The Tamil version, titled Naan Ee, was Rajamouli's directorial debut in Tamil cinema. The film was presented by D. Suresh Babu of Suresh Productions.
For the first time in his career, Rajamouli began casting after the script was completed because he felt the story required actors who were suitable for the roles. Nani, the protagonist, was the first of the three of the main cast members to be chosen; he completed filming his scenes in 25 days. Samantha, the second actor cast, was signed as the female lead. Rajamouli chose Sudeepa to play the fly's human adversary after being impressed with the actor's performance in Rann (2010), and cast rapper Noel Sean as Nani's friend in the film. Sudeepa drew inspiration for his role as the villain from the 1983 Kannada film Bhakta Prahlada; he was portraying a character he considered to be a "bad guy" with "grey shades" rather than an antagonist.
The script was doctored by Rajamouli's cousin, S. S. Kanchi, while Janardhana Maharshi and Crazy Mohan wrote the dialogue for the Telugu and Tamil versions respectively, marking their first collaboration with Rajamouli. James Fowlds was initially chosen as the film's director of photography, but was replaced by K. K. Senthil Kumar due to creative differences and scheduling conflicts. M. M. Keeravani composed the film's soundtrack and score, Kotagiri Venkateswara Rao edited the film, Ravinder Reddy was its art director, and Rajamouli's wife Rama worked on the costume design.
Production of the film began with a formal launch ceremony on 7 December 2010 in Hyderabad. The initial version of the fly animation was ready by November. Rajamouli felt the quality of the animation was poor. He wanted to shelve the movie, but by that point, around 50% of the movie was already shot, costing approximately 10-11 crores. He asked the team to rework on the animation from scratch. The film's final budget was estimated at between 30 and 40 crore.
Filming and post-production Principal photography began on 22 February 2011 in Hyderabad; ninety percent of the film was shot at Ramanaidu Studios in the city. A sequence was filmed at Sri Sita Ramachandra Swamy Temple in Ammapally near Shamshabad, in early March 2011. Scenes with Nani, Samantha, and Sudeepa were filmed during the first shooting schedule, which was completed on 16 March. Shooting was disrupted in April by an ongoing labour dispute between film workers and producers. Rajamouli considered moving Eega out of Hyderabad if the strike continued. Filming continued in Kokapet in early September 2011, and principal photography was completed in late February 2012 as post-production began.
According to Rajamouli, the film unit consulted a 3D video of the storyboard before shooting a scene each day. After the filming of each scene was completed, the editing and re-recording procedures were done with simple greyscale animation. An Arri Alexa camera, a prime lens, and Scorpio and Strada cranes were used for the principal photography, while a probe lens and high-intensity lighting were used for the macro photography. Senthil Kumar had to use a special lens with a minimum f-stop of f8.0; the wide apertures required high-intensity lighting to get acceptable shots. He used GoPro cameras as they were the smallest possible ones that offered close to professional resolution. Phantom Cam was used to film extreme slow motion sequences; certain scenes were shot at 2,000 frames per second.
Digital intermediate (DI) was conducted at Annapurna Studios in Hyderabad. A high-end DI system was imported and the process took six months to complete. Singer Chinmayi, who dubbed for Samantha in Eega, found the process difficult because the footage did not contain the animated fly. This was the first non-Kannada film to credit Sudeepa (previously Sudeep) by his new stage name. Rajamouli approached Anuj Gurwara to write the dialogue for the Hindi-dubbed version titled Makkhi. The Hindi dubbing began in Hyderabad, and Gurwara dubbed for Nani in the film. Ajay Devgn and Kajol, acting as parents telling the film's story to their child at bedtime, provided voiceovers during the opening credits of Makkhi. The visuals accompanying the closing credits were altered to show the fly mimicking the antics of Devgn, Salman Khan, and Akshay Kumar.
Visual effects R. C. Kamalakannan and Pete Draper of Makuta VFX oversaw Eega visual effects, and Rahul Venugopal was the film's set supervisor and matte painter. V. Srinivas Mohan, who later collaborated with Rajamouli on Baahubali: The Beginning, worked on a short sequence for the film. Rajamouli planned to complete work on the fly imagery in four months, but it took fourteen.