Thiagarajan to direct four remakes of 'Special 26'

Actor-filmmaker Thiagarajan is kicked about grabbing a "golden opportunity" to direct the Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada remakes of Bollywood film "Special 26".

Viacom18 Motion Pictures has sold the remake rights of the 2013 entertainer to Thiagarajan of Star Movies. He also has the remake rights of "Queen".

"This time, I grabbed the golden opportunity of remaking 'Special 26' in all four south Indian languages and I will have the honour of directing this mammoth movie in all four south Indian languages," Thiagarajan said in a statement.

He is glad that the movie has not just won "accolades, acclaim and awards", but also "box office rewards".

"Special 26" is based on a real life group of con artists who pulled off many clever robberies during the 1980s, and robbed famous businessmen and politicians by pretending to be the CBI or Income tax officers. Under the pretext of conducting raids, the con artists would take away all the black money hoarded by them.

Starring Akshay Kumar, Anupam Kher and Manoj Bajpayee, the film garnered critical as well as box office success.

The cast of the Tamil remake will see Prashant stepping into the shoes of Akshay Kumar, while Prakash Raj has been signed to play the role essayed by Manoj. Satyaraj will play Anupam's part and the other cast members include Nasser, Shyaji Shinde, MS Baaskar, Rao Ramesh, Brammaji and Thulasi.

Talking about the development of the remakes, Ajit Andhare, chief operating officer, Viacom18 Motion Pictures, said: "'Special 26' is an intelligent entertainer. The film is based on true events which makes it universally appealing across languages. We're confident that our film will excite audiences in the South the same way that the original material did."