Will Manithan give Udhayanidhi Stalin some much needed mileage?

Producer-actor Udhayanidhi Stalin and team are all geared up for the Manithan release. Directed by I Ahmed, the movie co-stars Hansika, Prakash Raj, Radha Ravi and Vivekh.

Manithan is based on Subhash Kapoor's Jolly LLB (2013) starring Arshad Warsi, Boman Irani, and Amrita Rao.

Director Ahmed was preparing to shoot Idhayam Murali and had cast Hansika opposite Udayanidhi Stalin in 2014. But due to unknown reasons the project was postponed. Instead of dispersing the cast, the director chose to venture into remaking Jolly LLB and retained Stalin and Hansika as the lead pair of the new movie. Santhosh Narayanan was signed on as the film's music composer.

The shooting faced plenty of difficulties, with the sets in Saligramam being washed away during the Tamil Nadu floods. The title of the film, Manithan, was announced in January, along with the release of the movie's first poster.

After an exclusive screening for press and media today, director Ahmed was asked as to why he chose to remake a 2013 Hindi film based on a hit-and-run case. “You could have made a movie based on real incidents in our city and cases taken up in the Chennai court,” he was asked.

Ahmed with a smile said that he was not fixed at the idea of a remake. “I did not intend to remake a courtroom drama. But happened to watch Jolly LLB by chance and the film affected me so much that I wanted to remake it in Tamil suiting the native audience.”