Lyca backs off from producing Mani’s Ponniyin Selvan?

Mani Ratnam’s multi-starrer Ponniyin Selvan was initially planned to go on floors from July. The latest is that the shooting of the film has been postponed to December. A source in the know of things told DTNext, “Lyca had agreed to bankroll the film for a whopping Rs 400 crore. Due to various reasons, they have now informed Mani Ratnam that their production house cannot go ahead with bankrolling the film.” The source also informed that the director had then approached Reliance Entertainment, who had earlier distributed Mani Ratnam’s Raavan. “Reliance Entertainment wasn’t keen on producing the film as Ponniyin Selvan, a story on Chola kings does not have any relevance with the North, which is a huge market for cinema. However, they have now agreed to finance the film which will be produced under Mani Ratnam’s Madras Talkies,” the source added. So far Karthi, Jayam Ravi and Vikram have confirmed to play the male leads in the film.

Meanwhile, Mani Ratnam will begin his production venture Vaanam Kottatum, an emotional family drama that has Vikram Prabhu, Aishwarya Rajesh and Madonna Sebastian in important roles. While Mani has worked on the script of the film, the direction will be taken care of by his assistant Dhana Sekaran, who made his debut with the Vijay Yesudas starrer Padai Veeran last year.