Arjun Chidambaram who was last seen in Dhanush's Ennai Nokki Paayum Thotta has landed a role in Mani Ratnam's multi-starrer Ponniyin Selvan. After year-long pre-production, the highly anticipated project recently went on the floors in Thailand. The film is expected to be shot across a span of 120 days and the first schedule will last for 50 days.
Inspired by the classic novel Ponniyin Selvan, the film traces the life of the most popular among the Chozha kings, Raja Raja Chozhan 1. It is in fact about his early life when he was known as Arul Mozhi Varman. The film has a huge star cast that includes Aishwarya Rai, Vikram, Jayam Ravi, Karthi, Sarath Kumar, Jayaram, Ashwin, Trisha and Aishwarya Lekshmi.
Elango Kumaravel will be co-writing the adaptation along with Mani Ratnam, and veteran writer Jeyamohan will be penning the dialogues. Lyca Productions, which had previously released Ratnam’s Chekka Chivantha Vaanam, will bankroll the project. Apparently, buoyed by the success of Chekka Chivantha Vaanam, Lyca has agreed to come on board to fund Ratnam’s dream project.
Meanwhile, when the official announcement about Ponniyin Selvan was made a few days ago, Vairamuthu was not present at the event raising speculations that he may not be part of the project. However, there is no official word about Vairamuthu’s inclusion or exclusion to date.
On the technical front, it will be the Oscar-winning music composer A R Rahman, popular cinematographer Ravi Varman, who has worked in films such as Anniyan, Kaatrin Mozhi and Jagga Jasoos will handle the cinematography, and Sreekar Prasad has been roped in for editing of this magnum opus.
It might be noted Varman was supposed to begin filming for Indian 2, which marks the reunion of Shankar and Kamal Haasan after two decades, but he decided to opt out to keep himself available for Ponniyin Selvan.
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