Kamal, Madhavan: Boys just wanna have fun

Subhash K Jha

It is a casting combo that is bound to have all of Tamil Nadu agog with anticipation.

Kamal Haasan and R Madhavan will team up in the versatile Priyadarshan's next film.

Confirming the casting coup from Chennai, Kamal Haasan said, "It is a road film featuring Madhavan and me. Priyadarshan and I have been toying with the idea of working together for a long time. We have finally zeroed in on a subject that we want to do. Priyadarshan is a brilliant writer. But for some strange reason he wants me to write this comedy."

Incidentally, road films hitherto restricted to Hollywood seem to have sought and got desi sanction in a big way. First Ramgopal Varma came forward with a road film inspired by Steven Spielberg's Duel entitled — what else? — Road with his previous and new blue-eyed boys, Manoj Bajpai and Vivek Oberoi sharing screen space.

Even as I write this, Rakesh Mehra [of Aks - The Reflection fame] is readying the script for his own road film for AB Corp Ltd , with the two Bachchans, Amitabh and Abhishek in the lead.

Priyan's road film is a start-to-finish project. Kamal whose new Tamil comedy Pammal K Sambandham opened on Pongal, January 14, to roaring approval from the audience, says, "We are trying to work out Madhavan's dates. Meanwhile, I am starting another comedy called Panchatantram featuring me with the Malayalam star Jayaram, Karnataka's Ramesh Aravind and a Tamil and Telugu star. The film will be directed by the very gifted K Ravi Kumar with whom I earlier did the comedy Thenali."

Kamal's latest comedy, Pammal K Sambandham is expected to be a bigger success than Thenali.

A top actress from Mumbai who is a delectable blend of sex appeal and childlike innocence, is being sounded out for one of the female leads in Panchatantram. Says Kamal, "The role is naughty, saucy, sensuous. It has been written with this actress in mind. We hope she agrees."

Simran, who costars with Kamal Haasan in Pammal K Sambandham, plays the other female lead in Panchatantram.

After Aalavandhan [Abhay in Hindi], one wonders why Kamal Haasan is doing so many comedies [Pamal K Sambandham, Panchtantram and the Priyadarshan comedy with Madhavan] in a row? "I think I have exhausted my quota of grim evil with Aalavandhan for a while. I just want to have fun this year."

With Pammal K Sambandham opening to full houses, Kamal Haasan's comedy days are here again.

While Priyadarshan gets ready to direct Kamal Haasan and Madhavan in the road comedy in Tamil, what happens to the prolific Priyan's plan of doing a Hindi project with Shah Rukh Khan and Aishwarya Rai based on One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest? As of now, the film, expected to start in January, has been stalled indefinitely.

In fact with the completion of Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Devdas and Krishna Vamsi's Shakti, Shah Rukh Khan has chosen not to have any films on the floor.