The title is out, and it's an odd one for a South Indian tentpole: Picasso.

Shivarajkumar and Abishan Jeevinth's collaboration finally has a name and a face, both revealed Monday when Rishab Shetty put out the first look on social media. The poster has the two actors in white, standing loose and a little smug in a field littered with burnt-out firecrackers. The contrast is the point. Calm men, scorched ground.

What makes this one worth watching isn't the poster though. It's the pairing.

Shivarajkumar is Kannada cinema's most durable star, still stacking projects at an age when most leading men slow down. Abishan Jeevinth is barely off his first big win. He wrote and directed Tourist Family, which turned into one of the year's word-of-mouth hits, then stepped in front of the camera opposite Anaswara Rajan in With Love. Putting him alongside a veteran like Shivarajkumar, in a film that isn't his own, is a different kind of bet than the one he's made so far.

And it's not his bet to make. Picasso is directed by Gowtham Sivaraman, making his debut behind the camera. A first-time director landing a star of Shivarajkumar's stature is unusual on its own. Doing it while also carrying a rising Tamil name and releasing across three languages, Tamil, Telugu and Kannada, is the sort of scale debutants rarely get handed.

The cast around them fills out fast. Shivani Nagaram, known for Little Hearts, plays the female lead. Yogalakshmi, who worked with Abishan on Tourist Family, returns for a pivotal role, one of several projects keeping her busy alongside Vetri Maaran and Silambarasan TR's Arasan and the JioHotstar series The Court. Singer Gana Vinoth makes his acting debut in the film. It's a mix of a name that opens box offices, a debutant with buzz, and faces still building their own following.

The technical credits read like a serious swing at all three markets. Leon James is on music. Pragadeesh Prabhu S handles cinematography, Sureshkumar K edits, Swathi Ramakrishnan does costumes, and Viju Vijayan is art director. A. Balamurugan produces under the Drama Company banner, with R. Kaarthikeyan, Dinesh Balachandran and R. R. Deepan Raj co-producing alongside Green God and D Pictures.

No plot details yet, and the makers haven't said what Shivarajkumar and Abishan actually play. Filming has wrapped and post-production is on. Shivarajkumar, meanwhile, has Jailer 2 and Gummadi Narsaiah still to come, so Picasso is one of several plates he's spinning right now.

A release date hasn't been announced. That's the next thing to watch for.