Toxic with Geetu Mohandas is not Yash’s first collaboration with a woman director

“Yash, you are the wind beneath my wings, let’s create some magic,” wrote Malayalam actor-filmmaker Geetu Mohandas, as she officially announced her collaboration with Rocking Star Yash on December 8. It’d been rumoured for a while that Yash would be working with a woman director and Geetu’s name was the most prominent that came up. This, of course, had been met with mixed reactions from netizens, taking into consideration the cinematic treatment and box office status of her last film, Moothon, and some of her interviews, where she had spoken about doing a gangster flick from a female perspective and that her scripts remain a work in progress even during filming because she constantly improvises. This was seen as a rather flippant style, which, netizens feared would hurt the prospects of Yash’s film.

Many of the social media discussions after this morning’s title announcement was about Geetu, with netizens remaining hopeful of pulling off something wondrous.

While Yash’s collaboration with Geetu after delivering a monstrous hit like KGF was widely seen as a progressive move, this is not the first time that the actor has worked with a woman director. Yash’s very film was Jambada Hudugi, which was directed by Priya Hassan. Not long after, he joined Sumana Kittur for a political satire called Kallara Santhe, based on a script by Agni Sridhar. He’s also done a film called Rajadhani with Sowmya Sathyan, way back in 2011. It’s been well over a decade since Yash last worked with a woman in the director’s chair and it would be interesting to see what they brew, considering the massive expectations resting on this project.

Yash19 is Toxic; sets long-holiday date with audiences 

Yash himself has said that his next film will not be big, alluding to the scale of the making, but that it will be good. It will be a film that all will be proud of, he’d said. The speculation right now is that Geetu and Yash will present a story about Goa’s drug mafia in the 60s, 70s and 80s, for which JJ Perry and Sam Hargrave (Extraction) will compose action blocks.

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