Priyadarshan To Decide On His Kunjali Marakkar Film After Eight Months

A few days ago it was announced that director Priyadarshan is coming up with a movie on Kunjali Marakkar which will star Mohanlal. Soon after Priyadarshan’s announcement, Santosh Sivan had announced of a movie on a similar subject with Mammootty. Santosh’s movie will be titled Kunjali Marakkar IV and will start rolling by April 2018.

Sivan’s announcement of the film led to speculations that Priyadarshan has dropped the idea as "Malayalam cinema doesn't need two Kunjali Marakkars". But, now the Oppam director has said that he will start his project only after waiting for eight months to see whether Santosh has started working on his film or not.

  "Three years ago also, they told me that they would be doing the film. So, this time I will wait for about six to eight months. But if they are delaying it just to hinder my film, I will naturally go ahead with my project," Priyadarshan says. He added, "But if they are doing the Kunjali Marakkar film, I will drop it because it's unhealthy to have unnecessary competition in an industry like ours."

He also gave an incidence of Bollywood when two flicks on Bhagat Singh, Ajay Devgn's Legend of Bhagat Singh and Bobby Deol's 23rd March 1931: Shaheed, released in 2002 and failed to do wonders at the box office. "Both movies didn't work in the box office. All that resulted was bad blood between the teams. We don't want that in the Malayalam film industry," says Priyadarshan.

There were four Kunjali Marakkars in history and Priyadarshan has said that he plans to focus on the fourth naval chieftain. Priyadarshan said, "Kunjali Marakkar IV has the most interesting story. He was the one who revolted against the Zamorins and was hanged.” He further said, "Most of his story happens in the sea and it's never easy to shoot such a film in the sea. It has to be shot on par with international standards and needs to be appealing for the national audience with star cast from other industries too. Our film has been planned in such a way."

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Source:   images.indianexpress.com