After much speculation, the official announcement about Mani Ratnam's Ponniyin Selvan is out and veteran lyricist Vairamuthu is conspicuous by his absence.
The Mani Ratnam-AR Rahman-Vairamuthu combination is a fan favourite and has been a regular in Madras Talkies movies.
Vairamuthu may have been possibly left out because of the social media outrage some time back over the alleged inclusion of the #MeToo accused lyricist in the project. But there has been no official confirmation yet.
Actors Vikram, Karthi, Jayam Ravi, Vikram Prabhu, and Aishwarya Rai are on board. Trisha, Aishwarya Lekshmi, Ashwin Kakumanu, Sarathkumar, Prabhu, Jayaram, and Kishore are also part of the ambitious project.
The film had gone on the floors on December 10 in Bangkok, reported Cinema Express.
Vijay Sethupathi, who was rumoured to be part of the film, is also missing from the official statement.
Lyca Productions and Madras Talkies will jointly produce the film. Actor-writer Kumaravel of Abhiyum Naanum fame is co-writing the project with Mani Ratnam, while writer Jeyamohan will write the dialogues for the film, which is based on the Tamil epic novel by Kalki.
AR Rahman will compose the music for Ponniyin Selvan. After Kaatru Veliyidai, cinematographer Ravi Varman is teaming up with Mani Ratnam again for this film. Sreekar Prasad has been roped in for editing.