Mohanlal's L2: Empuraan, which was released worldwide on March 27, has been leaked online. The development comes days after several social media users claimed to have seen portions of the Malayalam movie circulating as reels and videos, particularly on Facebook.
The Malayalam action-drama L2: Empuraan or L2E made news after the makers were forced to remove some of the scenes after right-wing groups cried foul. Written by Murali Gopi and directed by Prithviraj Sukumaran, L2: Empuraan had references to the 2002 Gujarat riots. The depiction of the Godhra train burning in the movie was "incomplete", the critics alleged. The depiction and name used for the main antagonist were also not well received by right-wing outfits and certain BJP leaders who labelled the movie "anti-RSS" and "anti-Hindu".
THE WEEK got visuals of a train passenger watching the movie, which is successfully running in theatres, on a mobile phone on April 3, Thursday. The film is yet to release on OTT platforms and any version available on gadgets is a pirated version. The visuals accessed by THE WEEK captured 'EMPURAAN (2025)' appearing on the top of the screen.
According to Google, the total running time (TRT) of L2E is two hours and 59 minutes. The video file was 2 hours 55 minutes and 33 seconds long, the video showed. People who watched the movie confirmed that the person was indeed watching the Mohanlal movie that has earned ₹84.40 crore nett (gross collection minus taxes) in seven days domestically.
THE WEEK tried but failed to interact with the person who was found watching the Lucifer sequel on the Ernakulam-Kayamkulam Passenger on Thursday evening.
Earlier, many users had flagged portions of the movie streaming on Facebook in short video formats. The links shared with THE WEEK were either broken or unavailable during the time of compiling this report.
L2: Empuraan controversy
Soon after its release, there were boycott calls against L2E by right-wing cyber cells. The campaign that initially began by posting screenshots of cancelled tickets of the movie soon took an ugly turn when the director and family were targeted. A scathing cyber attack was launched against Prithviraj, who also played an important role in the movie. His wife was called an "urban Naxal" by a BJP leader, who demanded Prithiviraj's mother and veteran actor Mallika Sukumaran to control her daughter-in-law.
According to reports, the Censor Board of Film Certification said L2: Empuraan made 17 cuts first before making it 24. The assault on a pregnant woman and certain contentious dialogues between two antagonists were among the deleted scenes while the name of the villian was also altered and the mention of NIA was muted. Kerala's lone BJP MP and Union Minister Suresh Gopi's name was removed from the 'thank-you card' post "re-release."
The makers had earlier confirmed that 'Empuraan' crossed the ₹200 crore-mark globally and also became the fastest ₹50-crore grosser in Kerala.
