Shankar and Rajinikanth’s highly anticipated Endhiran 2.0 will start rolling from today. The director himself confirmed the news on his official Twitter page last night.
“The team will start shooting the non-Rajinikanth portions in the first schedule. A huge set has been erected in the now-defunct EVP Theme Park, situated on the outskirts of Chennai. Rajinikanth is expected to join the team end-January or early-February after completing the dubbing work for Kabali, whose penultimate leg of shooting is currently underway,” says a source in the know.
Tamil star Dhanush replied to filmmaker Shankar’s tweet with an excited post:
The project has already generated a lot of hype, especially about who will be the antagonist opposite Rajinikanth, who is currently busy in Goa shooting for Pa Ranjith’s film Kabali. Since Arnold Schwarzenegger is not a part of the cast, due to a conflict of opinion with Shankar on the film’s script, the team is currently on the lookout for a popular Bollywood face to play the villain.
Billed as the most expensive Indian film, Endhiran 2.0 is bankrolled by Lyca Productions. Amy Jackson, who has confirmed being a part of the film, could well be seen playing the role of a robot and paired opposite Rajinikanth’s character, ‘Chitti’. According to reports there will be another lead heroine and the team is sifting through the A-list female leads to cast for the film.
While cinematographer Nirav Shah (Dhoom, Dhoom 2, Billa) will be behind the camera, AR Rahman, a long-standing collaborator of Shankar, will compose music for this mega-budget star vehicle. Prolific prosthetics expert Sean Foot, who did a stunning makeover on Vikram’s disfigured face in Shanakar’s superhit I, is also part of the technical team. A special make-up test for Rajinikanth will be conducted as soon as he returns to Chennai. National award-winning VFX specialist Srinivas Mohan, who made heads turn with the recent box-office behemoth Baahubali, will be in charge of the film’s visual effects.
(Karthik Kumar is an independent film critic and journalist. He actively follows and writes on popular South Indian cinema and covers independent films too.)
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