Salaar star Prabhas rejected Thani Oruvan, reveals Mohan Raja

Director Mohan Raja has revealed that he developed the initial idea for Thani Oruvan keeping Prabhas in mind, but it later went to Jayam Ravi for this reason.

Prabhas was the first choice for Thani Oruvan.

Filmmaker Mohan Raja recently made a grand announcement about his next project, which is a follow-up to his blockbuster movie Thani Oruvan. The next movie, simply titled Thani Oruvan 2, will follow ASP Mithran's (Jayam Ravi) next adventure in his hunt to eradicate the biggest criminals in the country.

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A milestone movie

Thani Oruvan is a milestone film in the careers of both Mohan Raja and Jayam Ravi. The real-life brothers began their journey in movies together with Jayam. The 2003 movie was the remake of the Telugu hit of the same name. The Tamil remake was a big hit launching the successful careers of Mohan Raja and Jayam Ravi. The brothers later went on to make several Telugu hit remakes in Tamil carving a niche for themselves.

However, Mohan Raja also faced criticism and doubts about his ability to conceive and make original movies. And Thani Oruvan was Mohan Raja's way of proving his critics wrong.

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Not Jayam Ravi, Prabhas was the first choice

Thani Oruvan was released in 2015 starring Jayam Ravi in the lead. The movie was both a critical and commercial hit. In a recent interview, however, Mohan Raja revealed that the idea germinated in his mind when he was offered to write a movie for Telugu superstar Prabhas.

The idea of Thani Oruvan began while thinking of a story for Prabhas," the director revealed. He noted that the initial idea for the movie emerged from a visual of imagining Prabhas jumping out of a police compound.

"Prabhas had a different career plan at the time. He wanted to do love stories and he asked me if I could work something along those lines. And at the same time, I received a call from Vijay sir and Velayudham happened," he revealed.

Mohan Raja claimed that his luck played a huge role in nudging to him stick with his idea for the cop movie, noting that he found out his true worth and talent as a filmmaker while developing that film.

Meanwhile, Prabhas is waiting for the release of Salaar.

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