Producer reveals why Prithviraj’s big budget film Karnan was shelved
The massive success of SS Rajamouli’s Baahubali franchise showed the real potential of such films in the Indian market. Inspired by that filmmakers across the country announced similar spectacle-heavy epic films. Prithviraj Sukumaran’s Karnan was the first such project to be announced from Malayalam film industry.
Prithviraj joined hands with his Ennu Ninte Moideen director RS Vimal for a mythological epic film based on the Mahabharatha character Karnan. The project was announced last year by Prithviraj himself. A launch ceremony was also held in Dubai. UAE based businessman Venu Kunnappilly was set to produce this big budget movie under his banner Kavya Films.
RS Vimal and his team had also started the pre-production works in Ramoji Rao Film City in Hyderabad. But after a while there was no information about this film. There were no further developments as speculations raised about the project being shelved. It was only recently that news broke about the producer opting out of the project.
Venu Kunnappilly’s Kavya Films is now backing Mammootty’s mega budget film Mamangam, which was announced officially on the eve of Diwali. In a recent Interview to a popular radio channel, the producer opened up on why he opted out of Karnan.
Contrary to reports about Karnan being made on a budget of Rs 300 crores, Venu Kunnappilly says that the film was conceived on a budget of 60-70 crores. On why he walked out of it, the producer said that they launched the film without proper preparations. The scripting and pre-production works kept delaying due to some reason or the other which further added to the already huge budget. This apparently made the producer to opt out of the project.
The future of Karnan is not yet known as both RS Vimal and Prithviraj have not talked about it for a while now. The actor is busy with multiple projects which will keep him busy for atleast a couple of years. Let’s hope they sort it out and find a new producer to back this much talked about project.
