Aasma in Hindi ?

Director Krish made Vedam in Telugu and the film was a huge success. STR saw it and was so impressed that it was remade in Tamil as 'Vaanam' with him in the lead. A few minor changes were made to suit the Tamil audience and the movie made a splash.

Now a leading Bollywood producer has expressed interest in making the movie in Hindi with a fresh cast. Krish will be the director for the third time and is thrilled with the reception to his film and says that its universal theme has helped it to transcend the language barrier.

The director is lapping up the appreciation coming his way and is finalizing the cast with some minor changes in the Hindi script to suit the Hindi audience.

Celebrations with speculations . .

Pleased with the reception that his latest outing Vaanam had got, Silambarasan had organized a success party for the cast and crew of Vaanam. The party took place at a popular hotel in Chennai a couple of days ago. Vaanam’s producer VTV Ganesh, distributor Dhayanidhi Alagiri, Anushka, Krish, Dharani and others were at this success bash.

Vaanam, the remake of Telugu flick Vedham, has turned out to be hit, according to Kollywood circles. This prompted STR to celebrate with his cast and crew.

Vaanam’s director Krish also has a special reason to celebrate as he is likely to go to Bollywood with this remake.

Deiva Thirumagal ?

News about the Thevar community’s unhappiness towards the title of Vikram’s upcoming movie ‘Deiva Thirumagan’ has been in the media for long. Before the team could relent and find a suitable title to replace the original, the Thevar group and Forward block party held protests in front of Vikram’s house in Thiruvanmiyur today morning.

Headed by Muthiah hundreds of people held protests stating that naming a character with developmental disability as ‘Deiva Thirumagan’ undermines and insults their leader Pasumpon Muthuramalinga Thevar. Once the protests started Vikram notified the police who came there and arrested many for causing disturbance. Vikram has sought police protection for his house until the case which is currently going on in Madurai high court comes to a conclusion. During all this commotion the producer Mohan Natarajan announced that the movie title has been changed to ‘Deiva Thirumagal’ ( U gotta be kiddin !).

Deiva Thirumagan and its trouble

After several speculations and options, Vikram and Vijay finally settled upon the title Deiva Thirumagan for their upcoming movie. Barely days after this title was announced people of the Thevar community demanded the title to be changed for it derogates their loved leader Pasumpon Muthuramalinga Thevar who was fondly known as Deiva Thirumagan. The Shiva Sena also joined hands with the Thevar community and demanded the makers to change the title.

Deciding to put an end to all the problems, the director Vijay and Vikram have now changed the name to ‘Deiva Thirumagal’. With this we hope the film does not run into any more problems and gets a smooth release by the end of May. Deiva Thirumagal stars Vikram, Anushka, Amala Paul, Nasser and MS Baskar among several others.

Spunky Vega

Model turned actress Vega first came into the limelight with her breakthrough performance in Saroja and Pasanga. The actress who is not scared to experiment has her next outing as an actress with Vaanam.

The spunky actress will play Lasya, a member of a rock music group originally played by Lekha Washington in the Telugu version.

Vega says her character is a challenging one and she is not worried about getting lost in the multi-starrer with the likes of Silambarasan, Bharath, Anushka, Prakash Raj, and Sonia Agarwal among others.

Though it is a small role, it is well fleshed out and will be remembered, she says. As far as her career is concerned, Vega is happy to take it slow and pick only good roles.

Crowd Puller . .

Young superstar Silambarasan-Bharath starrer ‘Vaanam’ was supposed to hit screens before a month, but was delayed due to unknown reasons. Now as everything gets ready, the producers are having problems in getting theatres.

Due to the grand success of KO, the theatre owners have refused to shift the film to small screens in their theaters. Apparently, This has troubled the producers on their ability of cashing during the 1st weekend and has caused a lot of confusion amongst fans if Vaanam would release as expected.

Yuvan Shankar Raja has already delivered best songs for the film with a list of hit numbers that has already become a chart buster.

Vaanam is a multi-starrer project with the film revolving around five parallel stories with STR, Bharath, Anushka Shetty, Prakash Raj, Sonia Agarwal and Jasmine Bhasin playing lead roles. The remake has Anushka reprising the same role from the original that turned out to be a crowd puller and the same is to be repeated yet again.

While everything go well as planned except for the availability of theaters Simbu has stated that the movie would release as planned making no exceptions.

Vaanam to hit screens .. .

Vaanam has been awarded with a U/A certificate with The Censor Board officials just muting some of the dialogues in the film. The movie is now slated to hit the screens on April 29th, 2011.

Vaanam has created a lot of expectations as this film is a remake of the Telugu hit flick Vedam and is Silambarasan’s first release after his astounding success of Vinnaithaandi Varuvaaya last year.

Vaanam is directed by Krish, who had also directed the Telugu version with Anushka playing the female lead in this film. Sonia Agarwal, Bharath, Vega, Jasmine and others also share the screen space in this film.

Priyanka for Prince Mahesh : Mani Ratnam

Mani Ratnam intends to make Ponniyin Selvan in three languages – Hindi, Tamil and Telugu. Since this film requires a huge star cast, Mani is planning to cast at least one popular face from each film industry, sources report. While for the Tamil version it will be Vijay, for Telugu it is Mahesh Babu.

Having offered the two important male lead roles to the most popular stars in the Tamil and Telugu film industry, sources say that the director feels that Priyanka Chopra would be the apt choice to appease the Bollywood audiences. She will play Mahesh Babu’s on screen pair in this film while Anushka will be Vijay’s.

Anushka Shetty in "Rana"

And finally Anushka is in cloud nine. Anushka has been confirmed to do a role in Rana with super star Rajinikanth. Other leading beauties Vidya Balan and Ileana were also considered but the chance has gone to Anushka and its been confirmed.

Anushka who made it big in Kollywood after Arundhati, is so excited and happy about working with Super Star. As of now, only Deepika Padukone and Anushka have been finalized for this project. Sources do say that there are more female characters that are yet to be decided upon. After all everyone wants to be part of Super star’s film.

Make Hay when the Sun shines

The Tamil remakes of two big budget Telugu films are all set to hit screens by the end of this month. One is the Nagarjuna-Anushka-Priyamani starrer Ragada and the other is Khaleja, starring Mahesh Babu and Anushka.

The Tamil and Malayalam producer of the films, Bhadrakali Prasad Rao, says, "While Ragada has been titled Vambu in Tamil, Khaleja will release as Bathra. The Tamil audio of both the films were launched recently in Chennai. Music of Vambu (by Thaman) and Bhatra (by Mani Sharma) will definitely strike a chord with the Tamil audience."

It is to be noted that both these films dubbed into Tamil as Anushka, the new sensation in Kollywood playing the lead and the producers are only trying to cash in their revenue Making Hay when the Sun shines . .

Skies to clear soon

After a roaring success of a series of blockbusters, Simbhu (aka STR) and Yuvan combo have joined hands together in Vaanam, now it has to be noted that this one has also turned out to be a massive hit. Especially, the song ‘Evan de Unna Pethan’ topping the charts everywhere.

Dayanidhi Alagiri of Cloud Nine Movies have bought the theatrical rights of this film and the latest buzz is that the film has been sent to censor board and the producers are planning to release the film by the end of this month.

The promos of Vaanam are already on full swing creating waves in and around the industry to be a real summer treat for Kollywood lovers in 2011. The speculations are high as the crew includes Anushka, Prakash Raj, Bharat, Vega, Sneha Ullal and Sonia Agarwal whose is on board after a long gap.

This remake of the Telugu blockbuster 'Vedam' is directed by debutante director 'Krish' with changes on the script to suit the Tamil audience…

Anushka has something to say . .

Anushka Shetty, the hottie who became popular in Tamil Nadu through the film Arundhathi, later on paired with Vijay in Vettaikaran and with Surya in Singam.

Anushka while speaking to the media said,” We should distinguish between cinema and real life. Actresses should not speak about cinema in their homes. Similarly when coming to the shooting we should forget our homes. Then only life will be happier. When I debuted in cinema, my parents use to accompany me but I was not able to act with perfection in their presence. So I prevented them from accompanying me. It does not matter that in how many films we act. But it is important that we should act in quality films. I act in all the films as if it is my first film. Only if the films are a success then only actresses can survive.”

The actress is Vikram’s co-star in Deiva Thirumagan and has predicted that Vikram will surely get several awards for his performance in the film. The actress is in awe over Vikram’s acting skills and says that she never has seen such a performance before.

Highly impressed with her co-star in the film, Anushka says that never in her acting career has anyone given her acting tips that he had given. Deiva Thirumagan’s director Vijay had also said that he expects the film to fetch several awards for Vikram.

Let’s hope that Anushka and Vijay’s prediction for Vikram comes true.

Vaanam to hit screens on April 29

It seems Vaanam producer VTV Ganesh and distributors Cloud 9 have firmed up their release date on April 29.

Vaanam is written and directed by Krish and is a remake of his 2010 Telugu film Vedam.

Vaanam is a multi-starrer and has an ensemble cast, including Silambarasan, Bharath, Anushka ,Sonia Aggarwal, Prakash Raj and Saranya.

The music of the film is composed by Yuvan Shankar Raja, while cinematography and editing are handled by Nirav Shah and Antony respectively.

The film is going to be STR's 2011 big summer release. Remember, his last release was in February 2010, Gautham Menon's super hit Vinnayithandi Varuvaaya.

If Vaanam hits the bulls eye STR's box-office ratings will go up.

South hottie to play Mahesh's sister

Nowadays Mani Ratnam is busy initiating the shoot of his period film ‘Ponniyin Selvan’. In the film Mahesh Babu will be playing the lead role and gorgeous Anushka Shetty who has always been the co-star of prince Mahesh Babu is paying the role of his younger sister in the movie.

The star cast of the movie is Vijay and Arya including Mahesh Babu and Anushka. In ‘Ponniyin Selvan’ Anushka will be Vijay’s love interest; however the female opposite Mahesh Babu is not finalized yet.

Mahesh is playing the role of king and Mani wants to sign up a top Bollywood actress opposite him. Let’s see who will be on the top of Mani’s list.

Priyanka approached for "Ponniyin Selvan"

If sources from Bollywood are to be believed, hottie Priyanka Chopra has been approached by ace filmmaker Mani Ratnam for his period film Ponniyin Selvan to play one of the female leads.

The actress is not new to K’Town as she has already starred opposite Ilaya Thalapathy Vijay in Tamizhan way back in 2002. Interestingly, Mani roped in Vijay to play the lead protagonist Vandhiyathevan for this multilingual project and the actor’s associates confirmed it to this newspaper.

Reportedly, Anushka has been finalised for one of the female leads and she’ll be seen opposite Vijay. Mahesh Babu is another hero in the film. Apparently, according to the story, Anushka is Mahesh Babu’s sister in the movie. Reports suggest that Mani wants Priyanka to play Mahesh Babu’s love interest.

Actor Arya will also be seen in an important role.It is reliably learnt that Priyanka is excited about working with Mani and will soon be meeting him for a personal discussion.

Though the Fashion star is busy with Bollywood movies, insiders reveal that considering this is a Mani Ratnam film, the actress will not relinquish the opportunity.

Anushka Shetty - Numero Uno ?

Actress Anushka has a lot to look forward to this year.

After all, two of her most important films in Tamil — Vaanam with Simbu and Deiva Thirumagan with Vikram — will hit screens in the first half of the year. While she reprises the role she played in Vedham in Vaanam, its remake, Anushka apparently plays a lawyer in Deiva Thirumagan, being directed by Vijay of Madrassapattinam fame.

What's more, we even hear that Anushka is on top of the list for playing Simbu's heroine in the Tamil remake of the Hindi blockbuster Dabangg. In an earlier interview to CT, Dabangg's heroine Sonakshi Sinha, who's doing Selva's film with Kamal Haasan, said, "I will like to work in the Tamil remake of Dabangg.

"But again, it depends on the dates. If I had a chance, I'd like to remake the film in every language possible." But, Kollywood is abuzz with rumours that the producers of the Tamil version are keen to rope in either Anushka or Illeana for the role!

Vikram geared up for Deiva Thirumagan's release

Vikram's eagerly awaited next release after Raavanan, had its logo and title release on Sunday (April 3) afternoon at the new Rain Tree hotel in Chennai.

It's official the film directed by AL Vijay has been titled as Deiva Thirumagan and is produced by veteran Mogan Natarajan under the Sree Rajakalliamman Medias.

Deiva Thirumagan has Vikram, Anushka, Nasser, Amala Paul, Santhanam, MS Bhasker, 'Black' Pandi and KK.

It has music by GV Prakash and the camera is by Nirav Shah and is edited by Antony.

Three 20 seconds teasers and a 97 second trailer of the film were unveiled for the press.

The trailer was simply awesome; Vikram plays a man Krishnan who has the mind of a 5 year old kid! The teaser is made for television, an invite to audiences to come and watch little Krishnan!

The audio of the film will be released on April 14 in Chennai. DeivaThirumagan is slated for release on May 14, as the big summer release.

Ileana or Anushka: Who is hot?

News of Silambarasan aka STR playing Salman Khan’s Dabangg role in the Tamil remake has been circulating for some time now.

What is currently hot in tinsel town is the buzz that the movie will be directed by Dharani, who has been missing in action in Kollywood for quite some time now. Sources close to the actor say that Simbu is holding talks with Dharani and matters have almost reached the signing stage. Since Dharani’s Tollywood film with Ram Charan has been put on hold, the filmmaker will be using those dates for Simbu’s flick.

Reportedly, after Sonam Kapoor was unable to dole out dates, it is said Dharani is keen on bringing either Anushka or Ileana on board, opposite STR.

Though there were initial apprehensions about repeating Anushka after Vaanam, the director’s contention is that the Vedam star is not paired with STR in Vaanam. Moreover, Simbu has one more film, Poda Podi, due to release after Vaanam.

A little birdie tells us that Ileana is also being considered for the role made memorable by Sonakshi Sinha in Bollywood.

Anushka loved working in "Vaanam"

'Vaanam', the remake of my Tollywood flick, is the best film I ever did in my career. I can proudly show this to my grandchildren. Thanks to my director Krish,” said an excited Anushka at the audio launch of the movie in the city.

The multi-starrer has young superstar Simbu playing the lead, with Anushka Shetty and Bharath. Prakash Raj, Soniya Aggarwal, Vega, Jasmine and Saranya playing important characters.

Produced by Ganesh and released through Dhayanidhi Alagiri’s Cloud Nine banner, the music has been composed by Yuvan Shankar Raja.

Speaking on the occasion, Simbu, who had a major hand in the remake, said, “I was deeply inspired by the script when I watched Vedam at Casino in the city. I immediately told Ganesh that we must make it in Tamil. It was Anushka who recommended Krish for the Tamil remake. What I liked best about Krish was that he did not make any tall claims but modestly said that he wanted to erase the flaws of the original.”

S.T.R. was quick to add, “It is not easy to do a remake. One should get the right feel and changes have to be made to suit the Tamil culture.”

Recalling his friendship with Simbu when he was launched as a hero almost a decade ago in 'Kadhal Azhivadhillai', Yuvan reminisced, “We met when Simbu was doing Kadhal… and became thick friends. I was also just a beginner. He used to ask me if I would compose for him one day when he became a big star. Today it has come true! Looking back, it has been an amazing journey.”

Big Impact this year

Actress Anushka has opined that films like ‘Arundhati’ are made only rarely. “Films like ‘Arundhati’, which had a powerful character for the heroine in a woman-centric film, are not made quite often in any language,” says Anushka.

The lanky Anushka debuted opposite Madhavan in a dud titled ‘Rendu’ more than six years back. The film, directed by Sundar C didn’t fare as well as expected making Anushka switch to Tollywood and try her luck in Telugu films. She did many films in Telugu but it was the blockbuster ‘Arundhati’, which released in 2008, proved to be the turning point in her career.

‘Arundhati’ was dubbed in many languages and did a rousing business. This paved the way for Anushka’s re-entry in Tamil films with Vijay’s ‘Vettaikkaran’, which did average business. ‘Singam’, which paired her opposite Suriya, did very well last year. She now expectes ‘Vaanam’ which pits her opposite Simbu, to further boost her career prospects in Kollywood.

“My height is definitely not a factor that prevents me from taking up movie offers. I’m not a girl of abnormal height; may be, I’m slightly above-average when it comes to height. I hadn’t faced any problems during the shooting of any of my movies due to the ‘height’ factor; it’s the media which hypes it", says Anushka.

“I have been brushing up my dialogue delivery in Tamil and this year, I hope to make a big impact in Tamil films,” concludes Anushka.