Ponniyin Selvan (upcoming film)

Started by NiveRoshni, Aug 06, 2020, 12:49 PM

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NiveRoshni

Ponniyin Selvan (transl. The son of the Ponni) is an upcoming Indian Tamil-language historical drama film written and directed by Mani Ratnam and produced by Lyca Productions and Madras Talkies. It is an adaptation of Kalki Krishnamurthy's historical period based fictional novel of the same name.

Cast

*Vikram[2]
*Aishwarya Rai Bachchan[3][4]
*Karthi
*Jayam Ravi
*Vikram Prabhu[3]
*Trisha[3]
*Aishwarya Lekshmi[3]
*Sobhita Dhulipala [5]
*Aditi Rao Hydari[6]
*Ashwin Kakumanu[7]
*Jayaram
*Sarathkumar[3]
*Prabhu
*Kishore[8]
*Riyaz Khan[8]
*Lal[9]
*Rahman
*Mohan Raman[10]
*Arjun Chidambaram[11]

Development

In 1958, M. G. Ramachandran announced Ponniyin Selvan, a film adaptation of Kalki Krishnamurthy's historical novel of the same name. Ramachandran bought the film rights to the novel for ₹10,000 (equivalent to ₹770,000 or US$11,000 in 2019), and would produce, direct and star in the adaptation, which would feature an ensemble cast including Vyjayanthimala Bali, Gemini Ganesan, Padmini, Savitri, B. Saroja Devi, M. N. Rajam, T. S. Balaiah, M. N. Nambiar, O. A. K. Thevar and Chittor V. Nagaiah. Before shooting could begin, Ramachandran met with an accident, and the wound took six months to heal; Ramachandran was unable to continue with the film despite renewing the rights four years later.

In a January 1994 interview with Filmfare, Mani Ratnam stated that adopting the novel was one of his "dream projects" that he had hoped to work on during his career. Ratnam revealed that he worked on a first draft of the film alongside actor-director Kamal Haasan, who had bought the rights of the novel, but the pair shelved their plan as the project did not make financial sense at the time.

In late 2010, Mani Ratnam renewed his interest in the project and worked alongside writer Jeyamohan to finalise the script for the film adaptation of Ponniyin Selvan. Expected to be made in the Tamil and Telugu languages at a cost of ₹100 crore, Mani Ratnam planned to produce the film himself initially, with the intention of teaming up with a bigger production house later on in the film-making process.[15] Technicians including composer A. R. Rahman, cinematographer Santosh Sivan, editor A. Sreekar Prasad and art director Sabu Cyril were soon after attached to the project.

Mani Ratnam cast Vijay in the leading role of Arulmozhi Varman, who later becomes the Chola emperor Rajaraja I. After signing the film, Vijay called it a "privilege" and a "dream come true" to be working with Mani Ratnam for the first time.[16] Mahesh Babu was cast in another leading role in the project, and also expressed his delight at being selected by Mani Ratnam.[17] Arya also joined the project to play a third leading male role after the script was narrated to him.[18] Meanwhile, Sathyaraj was signed to play a supporting role in the film.[19] During the course of the casting process, Mani Ratnam had also considered other actors including Vikram, Suriya and Vishal but they eventually did not make the final cast.[20] For the leading female roles, the team finalised Anushka Shetty for a role and held discussions with Priyanka Chopra in regard to another character.[21][22]

Seven days before the scheduled start of the shoot, a photoshoot for the film was held in Chennai featuring Vijay and Mahesh Babu.[23] For the shoot, the team sought permission from the officials of Mysore Palace and Lalitha Mahal to film sequences. However, their requests were denied with palace officials keen to keep film crews away from the historic locations.[24] The film was later shelved before the start of the filming stage, as the expected cost of production escalated. Jeyamohan stated that the film did not materialise as the team struggled to find available locations to shoot the film. He revealed that temple officials in Tamil Nadu refused to allow the team to film scenes on the premises and that the expensive cost of producing replica sets meant that it would not be a viable solution.[25] After the project was revived in 2019, Elango Kumaravel co-wrote the screenplay for this version with Mani Ratnam.[26] Several actors from the film including Vikram, Jayam Ravi, Karthi, and Ashwin Kakumanu and are growing their hair long for their roles in the film.[27][28]

Filming

Principal photography began on 11 December 2019 at Thailand.[29][30] 1st schedule was wrapped up and 2nd schedule started on 03 February 2020 in Puducherry and it will go on through 6 days.

Music

The film score and soundtrack are composed by A. R. Rahman. Singer Harini confirmed in an interview that she has rendered her voice for one of the songs in the film.