Is a Mani Ratnam—Aishwarya Rai Bachchan film on cards?

Flush from the success of O Kadhal Kanmani, ace filmmaker Mani Ratnam is said to have moved on to his next project. We hear that Mani will revive a project that he had planned last year with an ensemble cast of Tamil, Telugu and Bollywood stars including Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Mahesh Babu, Nagarjuna and Shruti Haasan, which is a bilingual, in Tamil and Telugu. Suhasini Mani Ratnam and Aishwarya had both confirmed the venture back then, but for some reason it did not materialise. Shruti has gone on record with DC that she would love to work with Mani Ratnam anytime.

Speculation is now high that the film will take off this year. Apparently, Aishwarya Rai who started her career with the Mani film Iruvar in Tamil has hinted in a recent interview that her next film will be a bilingual with the ace director.

The Raavan actress has said, “I chose Mani Ratnam’s film last year. That did not get made. Had it been made, it would have been my ‘comeback film’. For technical reasons, he delayed it. He spoke to me recently and is revisiting it.” She added, "I stared with Maniji’s film and had I made a comeback with his film as planned, it would have been a full circle in my career.”

However, a source close to Mani says that as of now, he has not made a clear move regarding his next movie, and added that Aishwarya is in touch with the OKK director and anything may happen in future. Mani recently did a special screening of his film O Kadhal Kanmani to the Bachchan family in Mumbai after he heard that Big B was keen to watch it. A little birdie tells us that the maverick filmmaker is currently cooling his heels in Bengaluru to beat the scorching summer in Chennai.