Tik Tik Tik (2018 film)

The DSD team which has Mahendran (Jayaprakash) at its helm find that an asteroid will hit earth in seven days. Lives of four crore people in and around Chennai are at stake. The only way to destroy the asteroid would be with a heavy missile.

But seeing as how there’s less time, there’s only one way to obtain the missile, through illegal means. The team goes ahead with this secret mission with only the Prime Minister, Home Minister and Defence Minister in on it. The biggest challenge now is to take it to space, which will only be possible by expert thieves.

An escape artist Vasu (Jayam Ravi) and his friends Venkat (Ramesh Thilak) and Appu (Arjunan) are roped in. Joining them are DSD members Swathi (Nivetha Pethuraj) and Raguram (Vincent Asokan).

• Jayam Ravi as M. Vasudevan, a trained magician and escape artist who is sent to space on a mission to obtain a missile to destroy an asteroid
• Nivetha Pethuraj as Lt. M. Swathi, an Army official who is also sent on the mission to space
• Aaron Aziz as Captain Lee Wei, the Chinese captain of the space station who refuses to give his missile away
• Ramesh Thilak as S. Venkat, Vasu's friend who is also sent on the mission to space
• Arjunan as K. Appu, Vasu's friend who is also sent on the mission to space
• Vincent Asokan as Brig. D. Raguram, an Army official and captain of the mission to space
• Jayaprakash as Chief K. Mahendran, who suspiciously tells Vasu that he has kidnapped Ravi and will release Ravi if Mahendran obtains the missile
• Rethika Srinivas as Lt. Gen. T. Rithika, a high-ranking official who is managing the mission who ends up getting killed by Mahendran
• Aarav Ravi as Ravi, Vasu's son who gets kidnapped by Mahendran and would not be released until Mahendran obtains the missile
• Balaji Venugopal as Team Head
• Aathma Patrick as Terrorist
• Jeeva Ravi as Police officer

Tik Tik Tik mega poster

After working together in Miruthan (2016), Jayam Ravi was again impressed by a storyline narrated by Shakti Soundar Rajan and agreed to work on another film in March 2016. Jhabak Movies agreed to produce the venture. It was revealed that this would be the first Indian film in the space genre.[12][13] The team began pre-production work thereafter, with Jayam Ravi describing it as the biggest film in his career.[14]

Actress Nivetha Pethuraj joined the film's cast in September 2016. She was selected due to her knowledge of martial arts. She is trained in jujutsu and kickboxing.[15] Aaron Aziz, a Malaysian-based actor who mostly performed in Malaysian and Singaporean drama and films, was selected as the lead villain,[16] marking his entry into Tamil cinema.[17] Jayam Ravi's son, Aarav, plays the role of his son in this film too.[18][19]

D. Imman composed the music for this film, continuing his collaboration with the director.[20] There is no romance or songs in the film.[21]

The team began filming in October 2016 at EVP Film City and Majestic Studio in Chennai.[22] The film is also being shot in Munnar, where the shooting has been halted for a while due to the arrival of forest elephants near the shooting spot.[23] The total duration of VFX scenes is 80 minutes in the film.[24]

The teaser was released on August 15, 2017.[25] The film was initially scheduled to be released on January 26, 2018, but was postponed[26][27] and eventually released on June 22, 2018.[28][29]

The film's score and songs were composed by D. Imman. The title track was released on December 11, 2017. The song was sung by Yogi B, Yuvan Shankar Raja and Sunitha Sarathy. The full album was released on January 6, 2018. The album has eight songs, four of which are instrumental songs (two theme songs and two karaoke songs). All the songs were written by Madhan Karky. This is Imman's 100th album. "Kurumba (Father's Love)" in the film featured real photographs and videos from Jayam Ravi's personal family collection.[30]

The film hit the theatres on 22 June 2018. The satellite rights of the film were sold to Sun TV (India).[32]

Tik Tik Tik received positive reviews from the critics. Thinkal Menon of The Times of India praised the film for the laudable attempt and gave it 3.5 stars out of 5.[33] Sreedhar Pillai of Firstpost praised it as a reasonably entertaining film with a novel concept and gave it 3 out of 5 stars.[34] Manoj Kumar R of The Indian Express said that the concept is not original and gave it 4 out of 5 stars.[35] Sowmya Rajendran of The News Minute praised the film for its impressive VFX scenes.[36] Vikram Venkateswaran of the Quint called the film a harmless entertainer and gave it 3 stars.[37] Sudhir Srinivasan of Cinema Express admired the efforts of director in this space genre film and gave it 3 stars.[38]

Priyanka Sundar of Hindustan Times called it a film without logic and gave it 1.5 star.[39] Gautaman Bhaskaran of News18 stated that the film is unimpressive story, and gave it 1.5 stars.[40] Kirubhakar Purushothaman of India Today called the film a typical underwhelming commercial film set in space, and gave it 1.5 stars.[41] Director Venkat Prabhu and actor Arvind Swami praised the film for the effort.[42][43] Vishal Menon of The Hindu termed the film simplistic in nature.[44] J. Hurtado of Screen Anarchy noted that the film had many similarities to Armageddon (1998), one of which included the human mission of saving the Earth from an asteroid.[45]

A success celebration was held for the film in Chennai on 29 June 2018.[46]

Tamil Nadu theatrical rights of the film were sold for ₹10.5 crore.[47] Tik Tik Tik grossed ₹ 3 crore on its first day and ₹ 12 crore in first three days in Tamil Nadu.[48][49] The film collected over ₹18 crore (US$2.5 million) in Tamil Nadu in the second weekend. The film collected ₹25 crore (US$3.5 million) at the worldwide box office in 11 days. The film collected ₹47.29 lakh (US$66,000) in United States, ₹17.19 lakh (US$24,000) in UK and ₹24.85 lakh (US$35,000) in Australia.[50] It grossed US$45,724 in USA, MYR 2,23,745 in Malaysia, £10,480 in UK, A$34,493 in Australia, and NZ$3,424 in New Zealand in its opening weekend.[51] The film collected US$68,812 in USA, £19,046 in UK, and A$49,176 in Australia by the end of the second weekend.[52] Tik Tik Tik collected £20,888 in UK, and MYR 5,01,436 in Malaysia by the end of the third weekend.[53] The film collected MYR 5,11,504 (₹ 86.6 lacs) in Malaysia by the end of the fourth weekend.[54]

• List of films featuring space stations

• Tik Tik Tik on IMDb