The Telugu film Valmiki is the remake of the hit Tamil movie Jigarthanda that was written and directed by Karthik Subbaraj. The film has Varun Tej reprising the role of Bobby Simha in Tamil. Atharvaa Murali has been roped in to do the role done by Siddharth in the original. Harish Shankar is wielding the megaphone for this remake. Valmiki is bankrolled by Ram Achanta and Gopi Achanta under their banner. On the technical front, Mickey J Meyer has been roped in to compose music for this flick with Ayanaka Bose handling the camera. Chota K Prasad will edit the film.
While the shooting of this film has been progressing well, the stumbling block came in the form of a police complaint filed by the representatives of the Valmiki Reservation Porata Samithi. Their allegation is that the filmmakers are trying to tarnish the image of the great sage Valmiki by making a film.
Reacting to this police complaint, director Harish Shankar wrote online, “Valmiki poojinchina Ramudu Kooda Dharmam Kosam fighting chesadu.... anyways we will respect and consider the concerns of #Valmiki Community.” (sic)
Clarifying that Varun Tej’s character isn’t even named Valmiki in the first place, he added, “And before getting into anything I would like to clearly state that the hero’s name is NOT “Valmiki “ in the film .... So our hero isn’t named after the great VALMIKI.”
The pre-teaser of Valmiki was unveiled recently and has been received well by fans. The teaser featured the lead stars Varun Tej, Pooja Hegde and Atharvaa. Interestingly, Tamil hero, Atharvaa is making his debut in Tollywood with this flick. From the teaser that has no dialogues, we can see that Varun Tej will be sporting a new look in the film. He can be seen sporting a beard with a scar on his face.
(Content provided by Digital Native)