Here is the real reason why the eagerly awaited Rajinikanth-Akshay Kumar face-off was postponed. Shankar’s 2.0, which is the sequel to Rajinikanth’s 2010 blockbuster, just got much bigger. The film which was slotted for release in October 2017 has now reportedly been pushed to January 2018, since the number of languages for the film to be dubbed in has gone up from 5 to a staggering 15!
The shooting is complete. Just one song remains. Because of the special effects, 2.0 will take much longer than expected to be completed. They are dubbing the film in 15 languages simultaneously. Besides Hindi, English, Tamil and Telugu, 2.0 will be dubbed in Japanese, Chinese, Korean and other foreign languages.A source
The entire dubbing process is being carried out on a war footing and will roughly take more than 3 months to complete.
The voices of Rajinikanth and Akshay Kumar have to be matched with those of dubbing artistes in every language. It isn’t enough that the dubbing artiste speaks Japanese or Chinese. His speaking voice has to match Rajinikanth and Akshay Kumar’s voices, as they are easily recognizable voices the world over.A source
Apparently, sound designer Resul Pookutty is being challenged and pushed into creating a credible cat-and-mouse on the soundtrack in each language.
We are dubbing the film into fifteen languages simultaneously. And every language is being treated as a separate individual film. The special effects are far more complicated in 2.0 than in the first film. But then, that’s the whole thrill of doing a sequel. We have to do it better than the first time.Resul Pookutty, Oscar winning Sound Designer
It has not been decided whether Rajinikanth will speak his own dialogues in Hindi. But Akshay will “most definitely not” speak his own lines in the Tamil version of 2.0.
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