'Mersal' makers have a film with Dhanush in the pipeline

After striking gold with Vijay’s Mersal, its makers Sri Thenandal Studios are on a high. As they gear up to bankroll Tamil cinema’s biggest project Sangamithra, which will be made on an unimaginable scale, it has also been learnt that they have a film with Dhanush in the offing. The yet-untitled project with the Maryan actor will take off next year and no other information is available as of now.

“Dhanush has committed to a project with Thenandal. Nothing else has been confirmed yet. The makers are still on the lookout for a director,” a source said. Currently busy wrapping Vada Chennai, in which he plays a gangster, Dhanush will wrap up Maari 2 and only then will he start work on any other project. Dhanush also plans to finish ten days of pending shoot for Gautham Menon’s Enai Noki Paayum Thota.

Meanwhile, Sri Thenandal Studios are getting ready for the shoot of Sundar C’s magnum opus Sangamithra. After months of mystery, it was officially announced last month that actress Disha Patani, best known for her work in Sushant Singh Rajput starrer MS Dhoni: The Untold Story, has been signed on as the replacement for Shruti Haasan in Sundar C’s Rs. 150 crore Sangamithra, which has been planned as a trilingual in Tamil, Telugu and Hindi.

The project was launched amid much fanfare earlier this year at Cannes International Film Festival. However, even before the buzz had died down, Shruti walked out of the project citing the reason that she was not given the full script as promised when she had accepted the offer. However, Hema Rukmani of Sri Thenandal Studios, the makers of the film, clarified that Shruti didn’t walk out. They chose not to work together as things didn’t work out with her effectively.

Actress-politician Khushbhu Sundar had made the official announcement via her Twitter page. She confirmed that Disha has been signed to play princess Sangamithra. Apparently, Disha, who made her acting debut with Puri Jagannadh’s Telugu film Loafer, was signed a month ago but the makers waited for the right moment to make the announcement. Amidst rumours that the project was shelved, Khushbhu, wife of Sundar C, not long ago clarified that the project will roll from December. She wrote on her Twitter page: “Movies are not about shooting alone. As rightly said by (Steven) Spielberg, 70% of film is on the papers and rest is filming it. ‘Sangamithra’ will roll in December.”