Mahesh in Mani Ratnam’s next big film
After making a magnum opus like Enthiran with a mammoth scale and budget of `160 crores, Sun Pictures cannot settle for less and hence sources reveal that they are toying with the idea of making Amarar Kalki’s timeless classic Ponniyin Selvan, the 20th century Tamil historical novel into celluloid. And guess who has been roped in to direct the movie? Top filmmaker Mani Ratnam, who has also been keen on adapting the famous novel Ponniyin… for the last five years, is being approached by Sun Pictures. In fact, it is reported that after working on the novel meticulously, Mani has etched a neat script that encompasses all the five volumes of the novel in just 80 scenes.
Ponniyin Selvan is a romantic story, which has real historical characters and incidents. And the big question on everyone’s mind is who would play the valiant protagonist Vandiyadevan? Even though Mani initially had plans of casting Kamal Haasan for the in the role of this immortal character, later he dropped the idea of making the film for various reasons including the kind of budget the project demanded. Now, with a renewed vigour, the ace filmmaker is gearing up to start his dream project and bring it alive on-screen. Sources say that the film will be a bi-lingual in Tamil and Telugu and Mani has approached Chiyaan Vikram for the role of the lead protagonist. Tollywood star Mahesh Babu is touted to star in the Telugu version. Well-known writer Jayamohan has been lured by Sun Pictures for a fancy amount of ` 2 crores for dialogues, which according to sources in the industry, is the highest payment for a dialogue writer. Earlier, accredited Malayalam writer M.T.Vasudevan Nair was paid a similar amount for Pazhassi Raja.
