Pizza is a 2012 Indian Tamil-language horror thriller film directed by Karthik Subbaraj, based on a story he co-wrote with Prasath Kumar and produced by C. V. Kumar under Thirukumaran Entertainment. The film stars Vijay Sethupathi and Remya Nambessan, with Naren, Jayakumar, Karunakaran, Simha and Pooja in supporting roles. It is about a pizza delivery man who goes to a customer's house, but becomes trapped there and begins witnessing paranormal activity.
Pizza is the feature directorial debut of Karthik, previously a short film director. The film's music is composed by Santhosh Narayanan, with cinematography by Gopi Amarnath and editing by Leo John Paul. It was the first Tamil film to feature 7.1 surround sound.
Pizza was released on 19 October 2012. The film received critical acclaim and became a commercial success, grossing approximately crores against a budget of crores. It also established Sethupathi and Karthik as a leading actor and director, respectively, in Tamil cinema. The film is the first instalment in a series and was followed by two spiritual successors. It was remade in Kannada as Whistle (2013), in Hindi under the same title (2014), and in Bengali as Golpo Holeo Shotti (2014).
Plot Michael Karthikeyan, a pizza delivery driver, lives in Chennai with his girlfriend Anu, an aspiring novelist. Although sceptical of the supernatural, Michael is deeply frightened by anything paranormal. Anu insists he will one day encounter the supernatural himself. The couple later marry after Anu becomes pregnant.
Michael's first disturbing experience occurs when he sees his boss Shanmugam's daughter behaving violently while seemingly possessed, repeatedly screaming the name "Nithya". The incident leaves him shaken.
One evening, Michael returns from a delivery covered in blood, muttering Anu's name and attacking his friends and co-workers. Pressured by Shanmugam, he recounts what happened.
Michael explains that he travelled to deliver pizza to a luxurious bungalow in Anna Nagar. A woman named Smitha lets him inside before going upstairs to fetch money. Suddenly, the power fails and she vanishes. While searching the house, Michael discovers Smitha's corpse nailed to a wall. Terrified, he tries to escape, only to find the door locked and the body mysteriously moved. Missing pizza slices and scattered crumbs suggest an unseen presence.
Michael later encounters Smitha's husband Bobby, communicating with him through Smitha's phone, only to discover Bobby is also dead inside the house. Reality becomes increasingly distorted as Michael somehow speaks to the deceased Smitha through Bobby's phone. Attempts to contact Anu fail, yet she unexpectedly calls Smitha's landline. Even calls to the police and from Shanmugam inexplicably connect to the same phone, leaving Michael trapped and helpless.
Upstairs, Michael encounters the ghost of a young girl named Nithya, resembling Shanmugam's possessed daughter. Fleeing downstairs, he suddenly finds the house brightly lit and covered in police tape. Two policemen inform him that, a week earlier, Bobby murdered his wife Smitha and their daughters, Nithya and Anu, before the bungalow became infamous as the "Smitha Bungalow". Shocked by the mention of Anu, Michael notices similarities to his own wife. He escapes as the policemen are dragged back into the house by an unseen force. Outside, the bungalow appears abandoned and derelict.
Michael returns home to discover Anu seemingly erased from existence. Distressed and traumatised, he attacks his friends before collapsing in tears. His co-workers sympathise with him, help file a missing persons report, and support him as his mental state deteriorates.
Later, during another delivery, Michael secretly changes his phone's SIM card and calls Anu, revealed to be alive. It is then revealed that the haunting story was fabricated. Before the delivery, Shanmugam had hidden illegal diamonds inside a candy box to avoid a police raid and sent them away with Michael. After discovering the diamonds, Michael and Anu devised a plan based on the plot of Anu's horror novel. Since none of Michael's friends had ever met Anu, she disappeared with the diamonds while Michael pretended to be traumatised to avoid suspicion.
Michael goes to deliver pizza to a house, but experiences events identical to those in his fabricated story, including meeting a girl identical to "Nithya". Locked inside the house as the lights go out, Michael is left facing the possibility that the supernatural may have been real after all.
Cast
Production Development
The short film director Karthik Subbaraj had initially intended for Jigarthanda to be his feature debut; he narrated the script to C. V. Kumar of Thirukumaran Entertainment, and though Kumar liked it, he declined to finance it due to budget constraints. Karthik then wrote a script for a low-budget film about a pizza delivery man stuck in a house, where the story could take place predominantly, and one of his friends agreed to finance it. While the film was originally intended to be within 90 minutes to qualify for international film festivals, Karthik later felt that it had commercial viability and added more characters to the script. In all, it had taken him a week to finalise the story and 20 days to finish the script. Afterwards, he narrated the script to Kumar who liked it and immediately agreed to finance the film. The story was co-written by Prasath Ramar, in his career debut. Karthik chose the title Pizza, feeling it was relevant as it reflected the lead character's profession.
Casting
The makers initially approached Prasanna, and later Vaibhav, for the lead role; Vaibhav declined as he did not like the story. Vijay Sethupathi, who worked on several of Karthik's shorts, was eventually cast after Karthik approached him. The name of Sethupathi's character, Michael, was derived from a turkey that Karthik once witnessed responding to that name during scripting. The makers considered Oviya for being the lead actress before Remya Nambessan was finalised. After playing a rural character in Kullanari Koottam (2011), she was excited to portray a modern and urban character who was vastly different.
Karunakaran, who Karthik had known since his stint on the reality series Naalaya Iyakkunar, accepted the director's request to act in the film. This was the first collaboration between Karthik and Bobby Simha, who became a staple of the director's later films, while Nalan Kumarasamy, early in his career and Kavin, in his career debut, made brief appearances.
Filming Pizza was made on a budget of and was shot in a single schedule around Chennai. Most of the horror sequences in the film take place in a dark bungalow. Karthik felt it would be "a little fake" to have furniture and actors visible to audiences in a dark place without electricity. Instead, he wanted the entire place to be dark with Sethupathi using a torchlight and instructed his team to refrain from having the entire lighting set up. The cinematographer Gopi Amarnath suggested to follow the light from the torchlight and ordered a high beam torch from the United States, which the makers proceeded with after a successful test shoot.
Because Sethupathi had to act alone for 40 minutes, he took a 10-day acting workshop with a Koothu-P-Pattarai artist, hoping to attain the right mood. While filming in Duraisamy Subway, Karunakaran injured his knee during the scene where Sethupathi's character pushes him. Filming was completed within 33 days. Pizza is the first Tamil film to feature 7.1 surround sound. The film was edited by Leo John Paul. Karthik has stated that some distributors wanted the climax changed as they were not impressed with the change in genre it depicted, but he refused as he considered it the film's high point.
Soundtrack
The soundtrack album and background score was composed by Santhosh Narayanan. The album was launched on 6 September 2012, at Sathyam Cinemas, Chennai.
Marketing and release The teaser trailer of Pizza released through YouTube in late-July 2012 and garnered 30,000 views within five days, which Karthik stated is "quite a feat for a small film starring lesser-known names". C. V. Kumar strategised on viral promotions through social media which included an advertisement where the crew asks audiences to take a pizza break for the recent films, garnering attention among film buffs. The film's distribution rights were acquired by Sangam Cinemas. Kumar spent on print and advertising costs, while Sangam Cinemas also spent an equal amount. Due to its non-Tamil title and U/A certificate, the film was ineligible for entertainment tax exemption as only U-certified Tamil-titled films were eligible.
Pizza was released on 19 October 2012 by Sangam Cinemas all over Tamil Nadu. The film was released in 300 theatres initially and the number of theatres was increased to 600 after the film's positive response. It collected within two weeks of release, and its final worldwide earnings were roughly against a budget of .
Critical reception Pizza received critical acclaim. N. Venkateswaran from The Times of India gave 4 out of 5 stars and wrote that director Karthik Subburaj displayed a "strong control of the medium and gives abundant display of his narrative skills", going to add: "If he maintains the quality of his menu and future offerings, Karthik [...] is sure to become one of Kollywood's top directors". Sify termed the film as "delicious" and described it as "entertaining and at the same time different in its approach". Malini Mannath from The New Indian Express described Pizza as "offbeat, intriguing and gripping, and nothing like what you've seen on Tamil screen before". Vivek Ramz of in.com rated it 3.5/5 and cited that Pizza was a "well made suspense thriller that keeps you guessing for most parts".
Malathi Rangarajan from The Hindu and Haricharan Pudipeddi from Nowrunning criticised the first half of the film. The former claimed that the second half of Pizza has a "reasonably enjoyable tanginess, but to get to that you have to sit through the protraction of the first" and that "the screenplay [...] doesn't render much help", while the latter concluded that the film displayed "signs of a craftily executed thriller, but falls short of satisfaction due to erratic narration", giving it 2.5 out of 5 stars. J. Hurtado of ScreenAnarchy wrote, "Where Pizza succeeds is that it tells a story on its own terms. There are no unnecessary flourishes designed to sell soundtrack albums, there are remarkably few comedic tangents designed to lighten the mood, and the violence and gore are fairly realistic and don't defy the laws of physics in the search to address the metaphysical".
Accolades Award Date of ceremony Category Nominee(s) Result Ananda Vikatan Cinema Awards16 January 2013 Best ScreenplayKarthik Subbaraj Best CinematographyGopi AmarnathBest EditingLeo John PaulBig FM Tamil Melody Awards19 August 2013Best Debut Music DirectorSanthosh NarayananChennai Times Film Awards4 November 2013Best FilmPizzaBest Youth FilmBest DirectorKarthik SubbarajBest ActorVijay SethupathiEdison Awards10 February 2013Best CinematographerGopi Amarnath Filmfare Awards South20 July 2013Best Actor – TamilVijay Sethupathi South Indian International Movie Awards12–13 September 2013 Best Actor (Critics) – TamilVijay Sethupathi Best Debutant Director – TamilKarthik SubbarajBest Film – TamilPizzaBest Cinematographer – TamilGopi Amarnath Vijay Awards11 May 2013 Best Story, Screenplay WriterKarthik Subbaraj Alt URL Best CrewPizza Best CinematographerGopi Amarnath
Legacy