Legendary director Mani Ratnam always has his favorites. Some technicians and actors are always a part of his films. He collaborated with actors like Prakash Raj, Aravind Swamy and others on multiple occasions. As we all know, Mani Ratnam has worked only with Ilayaraja till 1992 and it is AR Rahman who is composing music for the ace filmmaker from the past 30 years. In the same manner, lyricist Vairamuthu wrote many iconic songs in Mani Ratnam’s movies and the trio of Mani Ratnam-AR Rahman- Vairamuthu is a part of Tamil cinema’s history.
30 years after working together, the ‘Roja’ director decided to not take Vairamuthu in his next film ‘Ponniyin Selvan’. Vairamuthu will not be writing lyrics for any song in this dream project of Mani Ratnam. The filmmaker took this decision after the veteran lyricist was accused of sexual harassment by well-known singer Chinmayee.
AR Rahman composed around 12 songs for ‘Ponniyin Selvan’ album and Ilango Krishnan penned eight songs while Kabil wrote another four. This high-budget visual bonanza will be released in two parts and the first one will come in the summer of 2022. The film features top-notch actors like Vikram, Jayam Ravi, Aishwarya Rai, Karthi, Aishwarya Lekshmi, Trisha, Sarath Kumar and many others. It is being jointly produced by Lyca Productions and Madras Talkies.