Category — Movies

Rajini is all set to fly to Vietnam. He is going there to participate in Sultan the Warrior film shoot. He is wrapping up Kuselan in Alapuzha, Kerala. Once that is complete he is likely to participate in another grueling schedule for Sultan. After that he is going to take a short break at Himalayas and will be back when Robot starts rolling in August.

How long it has been since Rajini did movies back to back? This guy gets bolder when he gets older.

After Sujatha’s sudden demise, veteran writer Balakumaran will take over the dialogues department of magnum opus Robot. Balakumaran in no stranger to Shankar’s team. He wrote dialogues for Jeans, Kadhalan and Gentleman movies.

Some of his other credits include Nayagan and Guna. With Rajini he gave two super hit movies - Baashha and Baba and is known for penning immortal punch lines such as “oru thadavai sonna nooru thadavai sonna mathiri…”.

Sujatha was certainly irreplaceable. We are going to miss “Aathi-nna - pottu vechittu pongal saappidaravannu ninachiya?” type of humor-laced one liners. Now that he is no more, we are certain that Balakumaran is best of the rest. Welcome to the team!

Finally some news from Kuselan camp. Songs are being canned at a frenzy pace in Hyderabad. Rajini’s introductory song starting Cinema, Cinemathaan was shot with over 1000 co-artistes taking part. This song will feature Rajini in a flying horse.

The Punjabi pop icon Daler Mahendi will be lending his voice for Rajini for another song “Perinba Pechukkaran”. This song will be shot at Allepey. Daler Mahendi is one of the most sought after singers in Bollywood. He is so famous that A.R.Rehman wanted to use his voice in few of his Tamil songs, which he kept refusing. G.V.Prakash somehow managed to cajole Daler to sing for Rajini.

Watch for G.V.Prakash & Daler recording for Rajini in the video panel.

Folks, it cannot get any better than this. Latest buzz in the filmi circles is that, none other than Kamalhassan will feature in Robot. Speaking on the condition of anonymity, sources close to Shankar’s camp said that Kamal was approached to lend his voice for Jeeno, the robotic puppy that is playing a pivotal role in the movie. Kamal enthusiastically agreed to play this role. He reportedly even went for a voice test that happened in Ramoji Rao Film City in Hyderabad last month, where he tried different modulations of his voice. Both Kamal and Shankar were quite happy with the results, we hear.

There is a trend in hollywood to use superstars’ voice for animated movies. Such movies turned out to be huge blockbusters. To name a few, Shrek, The Bee Movie, Finding Nemo, Shark Tale are such movies. Super stars such as Jerry Seinfeld, Eddie Murphy and Robert De Niro who lent their voices added life to the movie, so to speak. Shankar is introducing another hollywood phenomenon to Indian cinema. Hats off to him!

Jeeno the robotic dog, was an important character in Sujatha’s original ‘En Iniya Iyanthiraa’, a novel on which the Robot movie is based. This character reached such a cult status, that Sujatha named the sequel after the dog ‘Meedum Jeeno’. This character captured the readers’ imagination in that legendary novel. We have to wait and see if Shankar can recreate that magic in silver screen.

There is no better person to lend the voice for Jeeno than Kamal. I remember a hilarious scene in Punnagai Mannan where Kamal playing the role of Chaplin Chellappa, tries hard to pacify a crying child. He would mimic different animals like a dog, a rooster and a monkey, to make that kid smile. He amazed with me with the perfection that he brought to the not-so-important scene of the movie. Lets see if he can use his animal instincts to add depth to Jeeno’s character in Robot. Cant’ wait to see!!!

Click here for latest on this news story!

Aishwarya Rai Bachchan’s cup of joy overfloweth! The gorgeous actress said that the main reason for her accepting the film Robot is none other than the Super Star himself.

While Ash had several offers in the past to work with Rajini, none worked out. “At every phase of my career I’ve been offered something with him. All those projects fell through. There was no way I was going to say no this time”, the actress said.

“I can proudly say I’ve worked with the stalwarts of North Indian and South Indian cinema - Amitabh Bachchan and Rajnikant! What more could I ask for ?” said a visibly thrilled beauty queen.

The Telugu version of Kuselan was formally launched in a star studded function in Hyderabad. The function took place at Hyderabad’s opulent convention center Hitex. This event was well attended by who’s who of Telugu filmdom. Some prominent personalities that attended the function were Telugu Mega Star Chiranjeevi, Venkatesh, Ram Charan, Former Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Mr.ChandraBabu Naidu, Union Minister Mr.Dasari Narayana Rao.

This function turned out to be an spectacular extravaganza with formal sit-down dinner served complete with wine. Those who spoke on the occasion heaped praise on the producer of the movie and owner of Vyjayanthi movies Mr. Aswini Dutt. Though Aswini is popular in Hyderabad for organizing such trendy events and his marketing abilities, this particular one exceeded his own standards.

The Super Star was in quite a humorous mood, I would say. He seemed to enjoy the company and the attention he was getting. He recalled an incident where his friend Mohan Babu suggested that Rajini should stick to Tamil movies. Though he didn’t mention him by name but chose to refer him as his best friend, it was an easy guess for everyone that Rajini was talking about Mohan Babu. He said at a time when he was shuttling between Chennai and Hyderabad for acting in Tamil and Telugu movies simultaneously, Mohan Babu pointed out the ugly politics that is rampant in Telugu movie industry and he suggested it is better that Rajini concentrates on Tamil movies only. At one point, a prominent producer wanted to cast Rajini as a hero in a Telugu movie for which he was going to give 1.5 acres of land in Hyderabad’s Jubilee Hills area as his remuneration. That was several years ago and Mohan Babu said it was such a cheap place and that producer is cheating Rajini by giving him land in a worthless area. Recalling this incident, Rajini said, “I think my friend thought I would be a threat to his popularity in Telugu cinema, that he wanted to keep me away from Telugu movies!”. At once the entire audience burst into laughter. FYI, Jubilee Hills is Hyderabad’s most expensive neighborhood and an acre there costs several crores now.

The Telugu version of Katha Parayambol is directed by P.Vasu as well. The barber’s role goes to Jagapati Babu. Guess what is the title of the Telugu version? Thats right, it is ‘Kucheludu’.

Director P Vasu has officially announced that the shoot of Kuselan would start from today (7th March). The inaugural pooja is set to be conducted, as usual with all Rajini films, in the temple of Lord Ganesha in AVM studios.

The delay in commencement of the shoot was mainly due to the conflict over the director’s wish of changing the original script to suit Rajini, which didn’t go well with the Super Star. He didn’t want to make any change to the original Malayalam script and is learnt to have offere call-sheet of only 15 days for this film. The conflict has since been settled and the film goes for shoot from today.

All the actors, including Nayan Thara and Meena are set to attend the inaugural pooja, which is scheduled between 9.30 to 10.30 am today. The venue of the pooja was changed from Ramoji Rao film city in Hyderabad to AVM Studios in Chennai to make it convenient to Rajini.

Robot movie commenced this week with a photo shoot scheduled in a hugely erected set in AVM studios by Cabu Syril. Sources said that make up tests are being taken with the Super Star trying various hairstyles. At this time only Rajini is participating in the shoot. Next schedule of the photo shoot is tentatively organized in May during which Aishwariya Rai is expected to participate.

In other news Thiru replaces Nirav Shah as the cameraman. Thiru is quite a busy bee these days.  Hindi movie Bhool Bhulaiya (Chandramukhi in Tamil) is one of his big recent hits.

Veteran writer Sujatha passed away today in Chennai after a brief illness. He was 73 and survived by his wife and two sons.

Sujatha whose real name was S.Rangarajan has written hundreds of novels, short stories and stage plays. His novels in 70s and 80s were huge sensational hits. He was also a successful screenplay writer.

He carved a niche for himself by writing science fiction novels which is a rarity in Tamil. Many speculate that Robot movie was inspired by his super hit novel ‘En Iyiya Iyanthiraa’.

May his soul rest in peace.

Vadivelu has been signed up to do the comedy part in Kuselan. Vivek was supposed to have done the role, but now as per official sources, the role goes to Vadivelu. The official reason given is that Vivek is having scheduling conflicts due to his commitments to other movies.

This reason is really funny.  In the last three years, Vivek was seen in only a handful of movies. Even though his comedy track in Sivaji was a super duper hit, that did not seem to help his career in any way. In such circumstances, it is absurd to think that Vivek chose not to act in Kuselan due to time constraints. There’s got to be some other reason. Did he upset the super star by impersonating him in his latest movies?

Both Vadivelu and Vivek are very talented, although their comedy styles are  distinct. While slapstick is Vadivelu’s forte, Vivek is a king of satire. As for as Kuselan is concerned, as we mentioned here before, we think Vadivelu would suit the the movie better than Vivek.  Can Vadivelu repeat the magic of Chandramukhi? Lets wait and watch.