Blow for Mohanlal’s Rs 1,000 crore Mahabharata, film earns the wrath of pro-Hindu group

It wasn’t long ago that it was announced that Malayalam superstar Mohanlal will be seen in the big screen adaptation of Mahabharata. The film, an adaptation of MT Vasudevan’s book Randamoozham, is reportedly to be made on a budget of a whopping Rs 1,000 crore. With the project set to take off later this year, it has already faced its first big blow in the form of protests from pro-Hindu groups over the film’s title. Apparently, members of Kerala Hindu Aikya Vedi are opposing the release of the film unless its title is changed.

According to president KP Sasikala of the pro-Hindu group, “Although we are happy that a big budget film is coming from Kerala named Mahabharatham, we strongly feel a film which is close to the story of real Mahabharatham written by Vyasan should only carry its name. No other movie can be named Mahabharatham. If the movie is based on Randamoozham, let the name of the film also be named same. Veda Vyasan also has his rights.” She went on to say that Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code is another version of Bible, but the book or its film adaptation was not titled Bible.

The film will be helmed by ad-filmmaker Shrikumar Menon, and it will be made as a two-part film. It will go on the floors next year and release in 2020.