Mani Ratnam's new film likely to be delayed

Filmmaker Mani Ratnam's upcoming yet-untitled Tamil project, which was slated to go on the floors in December, is most likely to be postponed as the veteran is contemplating the idea of making it as a bilingual.

Tipped to be a revenge drama, the film was to feature Karthi and Dulquer Salmaan in the lead. Nithya Menon and Keerthy Suresh were finalised as the leading ladies.

"The film may get delayed as Mani sir is now planning to make it a bilingual. While the cast for the Tamil version will remain the same, he will now start looking for suitable actors for the Telugu version," a source from the film's unit told IANS.

Ratnam, according to the source, has decided to delay the project as his lead actors Dulquer and Nithya have their hands full.

"Dulquer started working on a new Malayalam film with Rajeev Ravi couple of weeks ago. It's very unlikely for him to complete this project by December. Nithya, on the other hand, is juggling between Tamil film '24' and a Kannada project with Sudeep," the source said.

The film was initially planned as a bilingual and was supposed to feature Mahesh Babu and Nagarjuna. It finally looks like Ratnam has decided to revisit the idea.

The film will have music by A.R. Rahman, while Ravi Varman will crank the camera.