Mammootty In Kannada?

Noted Kannada director Abhay Simha, who had made his debut with much-acclaimed offbeat film Gubbachchigalu (Sparrows), will have Malayalam superstar Mammootty in the lead role in his second venture Shikari. Mammootty is said to be greatly impressed by the script, penned by the director himself. If this happens, Shikari will be Mammootty's debut film in Kannada.

Another rumour is that top Bollywood actress Konkona Sen Sharma is being considered as the lead lady of this Kannada film and she is likely to accept the offer, her first role in a Kannada film. However, official confirmation on the participation of Mammootty and Konkona Sen Sharma is awaited.

Shikari, which deals with the pre- and post-independence conditions in India, will feature music by Anmol Bhave and cinematography by Vikram Shrivastava. Produced by N.R. Shetty, the maker of the Shivadhwaj starrer Shubham, Shikari is going on the floors in March this year. Shikari will possibly be dubbed in Malayalam.

Meanwhile, some sources indicated that Mammootty has agreed to act in a Malayalam film to be directed by Oscar-nominated Kerala sound technician Resul Pookutty. This untitled film, which marks the directorial debut of Pookutty, is based on literary giant Anand's famous novel "Govardhanante Yathrakal", which won the prestigious Odakkuzhal award in 1996.

Arya - Mohanlal team in Casanova

Popular Tamil actor Arya (a Malayalee from Kasargod) is now pinning his hopes on the much-anticipated Tamil magnum opus Naan Kadavul (I am God) by director Bala. He is also to make his first appearance in Malayalam in Casanova, a Rosshan Andrews film with superstar Mohanlal in the lead.

The pooja of Casanova took place on Saturday (January 24) at Confidante Cascade, Bangalore, a resort run by the producer Dr. Roy C.J. It was attended by Jagathy Sreekumar, Lalu Alex, Lakshmi Rai, Priyanka, Priyadarshan, Joshy, Sibi Malayil, producers Suresh Kumar, P.V Gangadharan and Antony Perumbavoor.

Rosshan Andrews, maker of super hits Udayananu Tharam (remade in Tamil as Vellithira) and Notebook, has been working on this script for the last two years along with its writers Sanjay and Bobby. "After reading the script, Arya was very eager to do the film with Mohanlal. This action, romantic thriller revolves around a Casanova (Mohanlal) who believes that love can cure crime," Rosshan Andrews was quoted as saying. Arya has given 40 days call sheet to shoot the film in April and May.

The film has five heroines including Lakshmi Rai. Major portions will be shot in Vienna and other European locations from April 10. R. Divakaran wields the camera while Alex Paul sets music. The action scenes will be choreographed by Hollywood's stunt coordinator Franz Spilhaus of Flight in Phoneix, King Soloman's Mines, Avenger, Singh is Kinng and Drona fame. Produced under the banner of Confident Entertainment (India) Ltd. with a budjetof Rs. 10 crore, Casanova will be Mohanlal's big 2009 Onam release on September 2.

2008 Saw An Unhealthy SIgn Of Tollywood Making Inroad Into Mollywood

Malayalam film industry seems to be taking enough steps to ensure that dubbed movies don’t overtake the straight cinema. But still, the number of releases of the dubbed films at 23, is around 25% of the total movies released in Malayalam. If you are thinking that commerce dictates… then you are in for a surprise.


Actually, out of all the dubbed flicks that got released in 2008, only a handful of them made any profits to the producers and even then the distributors have bore the brunt of losses due to high acquisition prices. And the talk of high profits era seems to have gone away. But there is some good news for the Telugu film industry, as those that made some money at the Mollywood box office were the dubbed films from Telugu like Thulasi, Anasuya & Krishna. Even Dubai Seenu was relatively successful. While most of the Telugu producers realized the market of their movies in Malayalam, they have hiked the distribution prices which have resulted in losses for most of the distributors who had taken the Kerala rights. Khadar Hassan, a leading distributor of dubbed movies in the state, has seen profits in Thulasi & Krishna, but was extremely unlucky with American Halwa, Chandhu & Ghadolkachan. The only other movie that got any attention is Thampuraatti (Tamil).

Kaniha Bags Another Malayam Film opposite Jayaram

KANIHA has bagged yet another Malayalam film. SATHYAN ANTHIKAD has chosen the her to be the female lead for his upcoming JAYARAM film. The acute shortage of heroines in Malayalam is reflected by ace director Sathyan Anthikad’s decision to pick Kaniha, who debuted in director SUSI GANESAN’S Tamil film FIVE STAR but never managed to make it to the top. The actress is also doing HARIHARAN’S epic film PAZHASSI RAJA, in which she is paired opposite MAMMOOTTY. The shoot of the film will start on February 1 at Allapuzha as Sathyan is giving finishing touches to his script, which revolves around a Christian family residing in Kuttanad area. Sathyan Anthikad has to his credit the discoveries of current day sensations like ASIN & NAYANATHARA. Kaniha has been recently married to an NRI… but as she decided to continue with her film career… will luck favour her this time?

MALAYALAM film industry’s experiment might just be the model to emulate for many ailing film industries in India. Most of the leading film industries like Bollywood (Mumbai), Tollywood (Hyderabad), Kollywood (Chennai), Mollywood (Thiruvananthapuram) are reeling under the heavy weight of the A list stars. Mostly, it would be the remunerations of these stars which is back breaking for any producer and to top that… most of their films tend to become hyper budgeted which would leave the producers crippled altogether.

So, coming to the current news of a novel experiment to find an alternative to Big-Star-Big-Budget films… 6 low budgeted movies would be made by the Producers Association of Mollywood with prominent directors and writers between 2009-10. All the movies would be budgeted just around Rs 1.5 Crore.

Explaining the current film industry’s scenario and the current experiment… the office bearer of Producer forums G SURESH KUMAR said that depending solely on the Super-Star films doesn’t yield profits anymore as even their movies are biting the dust at the box office. To put the matter in to perspective, he said that only 4 out of the 54 films which came up in the year 2008 ended up as profit makers.

The details of the experiment are as follows…

Ace writer M T VASUDEVAN NAIR will script the 1st movie in the project list, which will be directed by popular director LAL JOSE. Director KAMAL will script and direct the 2nd of the projects while A K SAJAN will once again script for director SHAJI KAILAS for the 3rd venture. Scriptwriter-director RENJITH will be in charge of the 4th movie while the 5th project will be directed by RAFI McCARTIN for MHM productions. Producer SABU CHERIAN and director B UNNIKRISHNAN will unite for the 6th project of the series. Most of the directors who has agreed to do the projects will work on reduced remunerations while most of the movies will feature fresh faces in their cast lists.

INDIAN FILMDOM wishes them good luck and also encourages other film industries to emulate such novel ideas.

Gopika is Back

Here is the most exciting news for all the fans of pretty Gopika fans! Rumoured to have said goodbye to tinsel town after her marriage with Dr. Ajilesh on July 17, Gopika is returning to films very shortly!

She was recently in Thiruvananthapuram to receive the Best Actress award in Asianet Film Awards 2009 for her performance in Veruthe Oru Bharya and made it clear that she is ready to take up new projects, if she can complete her portions in 15-20 days. While speaking to media at her home in Ollur, Kerala, she said that she does not plan to retire from cinema. Now settled in Ireland with her husband, Gopika is still keeping in touch with the developments in the film industry.

During her career of six years, Gopika was immensely successful with a string of hits in all four South Indian languages. Her famous hit films include Autograph (2004), For The People (2004), Thotti Jaya (2005), Kana Kanden (2006), Mayavi (2006), Velli Thirai (2008), Annan Thampi (2008), Kanasina Loka (Kannada).

Her last, super hit Veruthe Oru Bharya, a comeback film by Jayaram, recently celebrated its 125h day at the box office and is still running successfully in the state. In Veruthe Oru Bharya, the young actress played the role of Bindhu with a child aged 14. Her last release was with Mammootty in AMMA’s multistarrer Twenty:20.

Mammootty is a Loud Speaker!

18 years after that breezy musical entertainer Johnny Walker director Jayaraj and Mammootty are together again in their new film titled Loud Speaker based on a script written by Ranjit.

The Lagaan heroine Gracy Singh is going to be cast opposite Mammootty in the film. It is said to be a humorous musical comedy entertainer. The film is all about a farmer who is popularly known as 'Mike' Gopalan, as he speaks loudly!

The others in the cast are Nedumudi Venu, Innocent, Jagathy Sreekumar, Salim Kumar, Suraaj Venjaramoodu and Cochin Haneefa.

The music director is Bijibal who will set to tune will set to tune songs penned by Anil Panachooran, while K.U. Mohanan, the noted cinematographer who did the Bollywood film Don will be the cameraman.

The Kochi based Time Ad Release who distributed Dasavatharam in Kerala are the producers of the film. The 'pooja' of the film will be held in the first week of February.