Exclusive! Minnal Murali director Basil Joseph denies he was approached to helm Shaktimaan with Ranveer Singh

Basil Joseph confirmed to OTTplay that the rumours about him being approached by Shaktimaan team were false

Basil Joseph and (right) Tovino Thomas as Minnal Murali

It’s an obvious choice to get Malayalam director Basil Joseph, who had helmed the desi superhero film Minnal Murali, to direct the upcoming Shaktimaan film for the big screen. And that’s what a recent report, which quoted a source saying that the Bollywood team is in discussions with Basil to helm the film.

Earlier this year, Sony Pictures India had announced plans of making a trilogy based on Mukesh Khanna’s popular superhero Shaktimaan. A source from the team told Pinkvilla that the team had already met Basil several times and had asked him to come up with his own version of the screenplay.

In fact, the report quoted that though Mukesh Khanna had met with several top directors to reintroduce the superhero to today’s audience, Malayalam filmmaker-actor is also the frontrunner to direct the movie while Ranveer Singh is the top choice to play the lead.

However, when OTTPlay approached Basil to confirm this, he told us, “It’s not true.” The filmmaker had earlier told us that he would be doing another movie before he moves to the sequel of Minnal Murali 2, which will have Tovino Thomas reprising his role as Jason, who gains superpowers after being struck by lightning.

Also read: Exclusive! Tovino Thomas on Minnal Murali 2: Don’t want to rush the sequel, now that we have a responsibility

“We have had discussions about Minnal Murali 2, but it will only happen after I direct another film,” he said, adding that the sequel will have a theatrical release unlike the Netflix release the first movie did. Tovino too had earlier informed us that the producers of Minnal Murali 2 are planning a worldwide theatrical release for the superhero film, especially in all the countries where the movie was trending on Netflix.

Meanwhile, Basil and Tovino will be acting together in Jithin Lal’s period fantasy adventure Ajayante Randam Moshanam, which has the latter in a triple role. Basil is also set for his next release Jaya Jaya Jaya Hey, which has Darshana Rajendran in the lead.

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