Vinayan has broken his own silence on one of Malayalam cinema's quieter what-ifs — why he and Mammootty, who worked together on two films in quick succession in the mid-2000s, never made a third.

In a Facebook post, the director says the answer isn't creative differences or a falling out. It's the stand he took on written agreements in the industry, a stand he says cost him money, opportunities and, eventually, a working relationship with one of Malayalam cinema's biggest stars.

Vinayan directed Mammootty in Rakshasa Rajavu and Dada Sahib, both shot back to back. He recalls that Mammootty played Ramanathan IPS in Rakshasa Rajavu, a police commissioner introduced as a negative-shaded character, unusual casting for Mammootty at the time. The film was written, cast and shot inside a month, something Vinayan describes as a challenge he took on deliberately. The period, he notes, coincided with the infamous Aluva murder case, which was still fresh in public memory when the film went on floors.

According to Vinayan, the second film happened almost by accident. He was busy with the release of Karumadikkuttan and in discussions for Kashi, a Tamil project with Vikram, when Mammootty suggested they do something together quickly if a good script was ready. Kashi got pushed back. Rakshasa Rajavu got made instead, and Dada Sahib followed soon after, shot right on its heels.

That was the last time the two worked together. Vinayan says the reason lies in a position he took publicly around 2004, that agreements should be signed in an industry where lakhs and crores change hands informally. He calls it a stance he still believes was right, even though he says it cost him "a lot of opportunities and a lot of money." He adds, without naming specific projects, that several films with Mammootty that might have happened simply didn't, because of the fallout from that period.

He draws a straight line from that fight to the written contracts actors and technicians routinely sign today, and says there's some satisfaction in that, even at personal cost. He also points to his later involvement in organising a trade union for film workers as another decision that hurt him as a creator. "For some, that kind of position helps," he writes. "For me personally, all it got me was the enmity of a lot of people."

Despite all of it, Vinayan says he looks back on both shoots with Mammootty fondly, and that watching the actor's energy today, decades on, still surprises him. Whether the two ever share a set again is a question Vinayan's post leaves open. For now, it's the memory, and the reasoning behind why there wasn't more of it, that he wanted on record.