Raavana

Raavana is a forthcoming Tamil language drama film being directed, written and produced by Mani Ratnam, set to be released in 2010. It stars Vikram and Aishwarya Rai in the lead roles while Prithviraj, Karthik, Prabhu, Priyamani, Bipasha Basu, Munna, Kishore and Vaiyapuri play supporting roles. It is simultaneously being made in Hindi as Raavan with a slightly different cast. The film was tentatively titled as Ashokavanam since it's announcement.^[1] The soundtrack for the film is composed by Academy Award-winning film composer A. R. Rahman.

Cast

• Vikram
• Karthik
• Prabhu
• Prithviraj
• Abhishek Bachchan
• Govinda
• Aishwarya Rai
• Priyamani
• Munna
• Kishore
• Vaiyapuri

Production

Development

‘Ravana’ is produced and directed by Mani Ratnam. It has a huge star cast including Vikram, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Govinda, Prithviraj, Priyamani, Karthik, Ashok Varma and others. ‘Ravana’ is a bilingual, Hindi-Tamil, movie and loosely based on the Hindu epic ‘Ramayana’. Interestingly, the director has modified the story with a modern touch, making the villain a hero. That is, Vikram here plays the title character as Ravan.The cinematography is handled by Santosh Sivan while music is done by Oscar winner A R Rahman.

Casting

During the early stages, Vikram expressed his long desire to work in a film with Mani Ratnam. Later on in 2008, during Vikram's completion of his long-awaited film Kanthaswamy, there were several reports claiming he was to be Ratnam's next star for being cast. Vikram was eventually signed up to portray the male lead character of Raavana while Abhishek Bachchan was to take over the same role in Raavan. Vikram will also be playing a supporting role in Raavan. Aishwarya Rai will play the same lead role as an accomplished Carnatic musician in both versions of the film, who is also currently working in a Tamil film with S. Shankar in Endhiran alongside Rajinikanth.

Initially it was expected that Kamal Haasan would play a guest role in the film, but after rejecting the offer, it was reported that R. Madhavan would portray that role, who claimed he was not approached. Vishal Krishna, Prabhu Ganesan and Prakash Raj were also reported to have approached for the role, as was Krishna Sekhar for another role, who rejected the offer. Prithviraj Sukumaran, however, was the first choice for his role of the lead antogonist. Prabhu was also signed up to portray another role. Karthik, Priyamani, and Vaiyapuri were also approached to do roles in the film.^[2] Later sources claim that Manisha Koirala has been cast for a negative role. While details of the films are closely guarded and pictures from the film set are yet to be revealed there have been numerous reports and speculations on the casting of both the films. Vaiyapuri is said to be playing the role of a transgender in the movie and Karthik Muthuraman is said to be a villain.

References