Shankar's expensive Plan B !

Director Shankar who is known for his extravagance leaves no stone unturned to capture the perfect imagery for his movies. Shankar has never been one who has been perturbed by size, location or budgets. For his latest film ‘I’, Shankar had scouted for some spectacular locations in China and also completed shooting some portions there in his first schedule.

But all was not roses for Shankar as he couldn’t gain access to some parts of China where he planned the shoot. Despite making numerous efforts his request was declined by the local authorities. But in typical Shankar style, he has apparently recreated those parts of China across 150 acres in Kodaikkanal to shoot those portions.

Looks like Shankar’s ‘Little China’ is quite the expensive Plan B !

Shruti Haasan joins the heavyweight S S Rajamouli gang

Shruti Haasan has been roped in for the next mega project of director S S Rajamouli which already has the likes of Anushka, Rana and Prabhas. This project has been titled as Baahubali and features Rana and Prabhas as brothers with Anushka pairing up with the latter.

This movie will get into production from April onwards and is currently in the pre-production and location scouting phase. The lead cast is being trained in martial arts and horse riding for this movie which comes on the back of the Rajamouli blockbuster Eega. Keeravani will compose the tunes for this film as well.

Oscars : Disappointment for India, joy for Ang Lee!

‘Life of Pi’, a movie adaptation of Yann Martel’s novel, which was shot extensively in and around Pondicherry with the help of a healthy Indian contingent as part of the crew has bagged 4 awards at the 85th Academy Awards that took place earlier today.

Not surprisingly the film won for Best Visual Effects and also for Best Cinematography which was accepted by Claudio Miranda. But the most unexpected surprise was Ang Lee winning Best Director, and deservingly too, since Steven Spielberg was the front runner for that award for his film ‘Lincoln’.

While the film was nominated for a total of 11 categories, the most anticipated one of them for the Indian audiences was that of Best Original Song which would have fetched Bombay Jayashri an Oscar for lending her voice, but sadly that wasn’t to be as the award went to the title track of the James Bond film ‘Skyfall’. But the film’s music director Mychael Danna took home the award for Best Original Score.

In the end the director, who won the award for second time after Brokeback Mountain, was clearly overwhelmed with the announcement and in his acceptance speech he made it a point to thank his Indian crew and even managed to sneak in a ‘Namaste’.

Will Akshara Haasan say Yes?

Shruti Haasan’s younger sister Akshara Haasan is unlike her elder sister in the sense that she isn’t interested in taking up acting. Her interests are more ‘behind the scenes’ in nature as she wishes to take up direction in the near future. She is now being spotted in the CCL matches along with her sister, cheering for the Chennai Rhinos team.

Some filmmakers from Andhra are apparently very impressed with Akshara’s looks and style and they are making relentless efforts to cast her in their films. One such offer apparently is from Chiranjeevi’s younger brother Nagendra Babu who is in the process of introducing his son Varun Tej to the film industry through this film, for which he is eyeing Akshara.

The 22 year old Akshara resides in Mumbai with her mother Sarika and they are currently in talks for this project. So will we see Kamal’s second daughter as an actress soon?

Action King Arjun to play a CM again

‘Action King’ Arjun is fresh from the accolades that he is getting for his roles in Kadal and Vana Yuddham. He is next ready to take up direction once again for a project to be funded by Aascar Films Ravichandran. This project will be titled CM, not ‘Chief Minister’ if you are wondering but it stands for ‘Common Man’. Arjun will be playing the protagonist as well, in CM.

Arjun has already directed 9 films till date and this new announcement will come as a pleasant surprise for fans of the ‘Action King’ who will next be seen in a romantic avatar in Vasanth’s superhit musical Moondru Per Moondru Kaadhal.

Superstar Rajini's advice changes Karthi

Karthi had a very slow yet steady start to his career since 2007 as for the first few years, he had releases which were highly spaced out. But now in 2013, he already had a release for Pongal in the form of Alex Pandian, is busy with Biriyani currently and is also beginning the shoots of All in All Azhagu Raja in April. This sudden prolific change from Karthi is due to Superstar Rajini’s advice it seems.

Rajini had said that young actors shouldn’t be very choosy with their releases and that they should act periodically in a variety of roles to benefit themselves, their producers and more importantly their fans. Karthi has decided to follow this approach from now.

We hope Karthi comes up with good variety after a slew of masala films over the past few years.