Vijay Sethupathi was earlier announced to play Muttiah Muralitharan in his biopic, titled 800. However, in a recent development, actor Madhur Mittal is now confirmed to play the world-renowned spinner. The actor is best known for playing Salim in Slumdog Millionaire.
The announcement was made on the occasion of the cricketer’s birthday.
800 is written and directed by MS Sripathy and will release in Tamil, Hindi and Telugu. The film’s title draws its inspiration from the record number of wickets Murali took in test cricket.
Speaking to CE, director Sripathy says, “Cricket will serve as a background and the story will be more about the person himself. Throughout his life, he has been someone struggling to prove who he is. Even in the games, he had to prove that his actions are genuine. He was called out thrice in Australia for chucking, just because he had a different kind of action. In his personal life, being a minority Tamil in a Sinhala-majority country, where there was a civil war, he always had an identity crisis. His struggle with his identity is the theme of the film.”
The director is collaborating with Shehan Karunatilaka, a Booker Prize winner who is known for writing books on cricket. “I wanted someone from Sri Lanka to collaborate, in order to know about their culture and nation.”
Vijay Sethupathi stepped down from playing the lead following the rise in backlash after people called out Muralitharan for his controversial political statements at the time of the Sri Lankan civil war.
800 is backed by Movie Train Motion Pictures and Vivek Rangachari.
The technical crew consists of RD Rajasekar as the cinematographer and Ghibran composing the music. Praveen KL is handling the edits.