Exclusive! Suresh Gopi’s Highway sequel has been planned as a big budget, pan-Indian action thriller: Jayaraj

Suresh Gopi is all set to reprise one of his most popular roles as RAW officer Sreedhar Prasad aka Mahesh Aravind in the upcoming big-budget sequel of the 1995 superhit Highway.

The film’s director Jayaraj, in an exclusive chat with OTTplay, confirmed that the project is on and is expected to go on floors by August or September this year. While Jayaraj says he wants to keep the plot of the mystery action-thriller and the returning cast members under wraps for now, the filmmaker tells us, “It will be a big budget, pan-Indian film as that’s how most such projects are being approached now. It will also be a commercial, mainstream movie that I will be doing after a long time.”

Also read: Gokul Suresh on working with Suresh Gopi in Paappan: There was an element of magical realism that I enjoyed 

The award-winning filmmaker also tells us that he had written the script of the sequel before the pandemic. “The script of the Highway sequel was in fact completed 2-3 years ago, but it had to be shot on a big canvas with locations in several other States. That’s what we are trying for right now. There will be cast members from other languages as well,” he adds.

The 1995 film revolved around a RAW officer, who is assigned to investigate a bomb blast that resulted in the death of 30 college students. The film also had Biju Menon, Vijayaraghavan, Bhanupriya and Janaradhan in pivotal roles.

The director has been busy with several other films. “I had completed Niraye Thattakalulla Maram, which was screened at Cannes this year. After that I had shot Kathikan with Unni Mukundan and Mukesh, and we are now busy with its post production,” says the director, adding that he is looking to release the latter in theatres and then on the OTT platform Roots Video. The director and Suresh Gopi’s previous collaboration Adbhutham was also released on the streaming service last year.