A hiatus of four years is enough to put an average film personality’s tinsel town career to end, but V.M. Vinu, who was not active in the industry post the release of his Mammootty-starrer Face to Face, is making a comeback with Marupadi, having Rahman and Bhama in the lead.
Vinu says that he was planning a Mohanlal movie after his previous venture. “The film titled Happy Singh was written by director Deepu Karunakaran for Aroma Films. Owing to budget constraints, we had to drop it,” says the director, who has called the shots for Mohanlal’s superhit film Balettan, another Aroma Films production.
The director came across the subject of Marupadi in the beginning of this year. “Producer Ashraf Bedi and I were in talks for a film for the past few months.
We planned a film initially and dropped it later on finding it unconvincing. One day, he called me back and asked me to meet him to discuss Marupadi’s screenplay written by his wife Juliana based on a real-life incident,” he says.
Vinu points out that the narration of the female writer prompted him to accept the project.
“This subject is based on an incident that took place in Kolkata years ago. Inspired by that, she rewrote the story placing a female lead which deals with the atrocities faced by women. The story she narrated had freshness, as if it was for the first time I was hearing such a script, that too, written from the viewpoint of a woman,” says the director, adding that his producer gave the go ahead with the casting sans going behind star value and satellite rates.
“Once she completed the narration, I asked her whether she had any actor in mind. She suggested Rahman. Even I was thinking about him. But the main task was zeroing in on a heroine. Though we approached three frontline actresses, they all denied the offer, pointing that it was a mother role. Interestingly, these are actors who complain of not getting important and heroine-centric roles. And when they get such subjects, they are not showing courage to accept those. Later we approached Bhama. Though she liked the subject, she was uncertain if she could essay such a big role, but she agreed to join our team. Now, I feel that Bhama is definitely the best choice for this role,” says the director, who has two films in his kitty.
