After the blockbuster ‘Hanu Man’, new-age director Prashanth Varma announced its sequel ‘Jai Hanuman' a few months ago and began to scout for top heroes to play the role of Lord Hanuman. “Few Telugu actors declined it," says a source who adds, “Prashanth moved to Bollywood and approached few actors and got to meet Bollywood hunk Sunny Deol. He liked the socio-fantasy story and unique characterization of Lord Hanuman landing in Kaliyug but he declined it. He told Prashanth Varma that he has already agreed to play Hanuman in the Hindi film ‘Ramayana’ featuring Ranbir Kapoor and Sai Pallavi and didn’t want to do similar roles in different languages but wished Varma good luck,” added the source.
Again, Prashanth Varma began his search and met a couple of Tamil actors as well, finally, he zeroed in on Kannada star Rishab Shetty to play the larger-than-life role. “Rishab has built his body and was looking muscular and fit. Actually, he toned down his body for ‘Kantara 2’ since it was a periodic tribal drama,” points out the source and when Prashanth pitched the story, he readily agreed to do it. “Most stars avoid essaying the divine role since it could dent their commercial star image but Rishab who is game for trying out something different, gave his nod. Now, the film will be a pan-India project with a budget of over Rs 200 crore since Risbhab is popular across India after ‘Kantara’," the source points out.
Even in the past, director Krishna Vamsi dreamed of casting megastar Chiranjeevi to play the special role of Lord Hanuman in his movie ‘Sri Anjaneyam’ since Chiru was an ardent devotee of Hanuman. “But later, Tamil-Telugu actor Arjun Sarja played the role and won appreciation,” the source concludes.
