The official confirmation is finally here; Mani Rathnam has got everything ready and decided for his next project, a romantic bilingual in Tamil and Telugu. We have been hearing all kinds of reports about this for a few months now. While most of them were true, the title of the film was just decided. It is not Pookadai, as was widely speculated, Mani Rathnam has christened his 23rd film Kadal.
As reported throughout media circles for quite a while now, Karthik’s son Gautham will make his debut through this film. It will be a unique generation shift, with Mani Rathnam having delivered the evergreen Mounaragam with Karthik himself. Playing Gautham’s pair in the movie will be the rising heroine of the Soouth, Samantha. She is having quite a time both in Telugu and Tamil. Her film with Mahesh Babu, Dookudu, broke quite a few records while she has Neethane En Ponvasantham under Gautham Menon coming up for release.
However, the big casting news is the presence of Arjun. It will be interesting to see what plans Mani Rathnam has for this senior star in a romantic movie. And, the biggest surprise of all was the return of Aravind Swamy to the silver screen after quite a while. Quite rightly, it is under his mentor and we are sure that Mani Rathnam would not have called upon him without a good enough reason. Thambi Ramaiah too is being considered for an important role, it is reported.
Finally, there are the constants without which a Mani Rathnam film is never complete. Yes, A.R.Rahman will be scoring the music for Kadal and this will be the first occasion since Alai Paayudhe when Rahman and Rathnam are combining for a full fledged romantic flick; expect some magic. Rajeev Menon will handle the camera. The film will be produced by Mani Rathnam’s banner Madras Talkies.
