Director VA Shrikumar Menon has denied rumours of a film called The Comrade being made with Mohanlal in the lead.
Shrikumar, a renowned ad filmmaker, had only recently made his debut in feature filmmaking with the Mohanlal starrer Odiyan, which, despite the efforts put in, turned out to be a failure at the box office. It is after this that reports surfaced of him making another Mohanlal movie called The Comrade. Posters of the film were also released on social media.
However, Shrikumar has clarified that these reports are not true. He revealed that The Comrade was suggested to Mohanlal much before Odiyan happened but the film failed to take off. It was during this discussion that the posters were made and now they were being circulated by some mischief makers.
Odiyan had, apart from Mohanlal, actor Prakash Raj playing a pivotal role. Manju Warrier played the female lead in this film and the rest of the star cast included Innocent, Siddique, Manoj Joshi, Nandhu, Narain, Kailash, Sreejaya Nair, Sana Althaf and Appani Sarath.
When the film flopped, Shrikumar Menon had blamed Manju Warrier for it. He hinted that there was a conspiracy to tank Odiyan because Manju was once married to actor Dileep, who is now an accused in the actor abduction and assault case of February 2017. The film, however, received near unanimous negative reviews from film critics.
Shrikumar was also expected to direct Randamoozham, another Mohanlal starrer, based on writer MT Vasudevan’s book by the same name. But when the filming did not happen for four years since the contract (for three years) was signed, the writer who has written several much-acclaimed scripts and also directed movies earlier, backed out of the project. Shrikumar had asked for an arbitrator in the case which has been rejected by the court.
(Content provided by Digital Native)