Madhu Mantena finds rumours of Mahesh Babu turing down Ramayan 'really funny' says, "We will announce the cast by Diwali"

Reports suggesting that Tollywood star Mahesh Babu is starring in Nitesh Tiwari helmed mega project Ramayan having been doing the rounds for some time now. While these suggestions set up fan expectations, they were recently followed by reports that the actor has turned down the offer to play Ram in the epic.

Producer Madhu Mantena whose ‘Mythoverse’ Ramayan will be a part of, has now reacted to reports of Mahesh Babu’s alleged rejection. “It's really funny. The thing is that I've already said we will announce the cast by Diwali and Nitesh still needs to find his characters because they are larger here,” the producer told Times Of India.

The producer said that he is close friends with Mahesh Babu and though they he has exchanged a lot of work on Ramayan with him, they haven’t discussed the casting of the film at all. He suggested that his proximity with the Telugu actor could be a reason behind these rumours.

 “If we wanted to make 'Ramayan' with Mahesh, we would wait for him. But we are still in the process; Mahesh is wonderful, but whether to cast him is something for Nitesh to decide,” Madhu added.

Rumours have also been rife that Deepika Padukone and Hrithik Roshan are also in talks for the film. The producer, however, did not comment on the same.