Amitabh Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai likely to be seen together in Mani Ratnam’s movie

Monitoring Desk

MUMBAI: Coming in as a great surprise for all cinema lovers, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, and Amitabh Bachchan may come together for Mani Ratnam’s magnum opus period drama. Touted to be as big as the Baahubali franchise, the film will reportedly star Aishwarya playing the female lead and has already signed the dotted line. While Big B still has to give a nod to the project, we hear this will be a three instalment series featuring some of the biggest names of the South industry.

Commenting on the same, a source informed a leading tabloid, “It’s a big-budget historical drama, which is being planned on the lines of the Baahubali franchise. It’s likely to be a bilingual project and star several other big names from the South Indian film industry. Mani approached his muse Aishwarya for the female lead and she signed on the dotted line.”

While Mani Ratnam will be making an official announcement of the film around Pongal on January 14, reports say that the filmmaker is very keen to have Amitabh Bachchan on board. The period drama narrates the story of Arulmozhivarman, who was crowned as Rajaraja Chola I during the 10th and 11th century.

The source further added, “The book has five volumes, but the makers are planning to conceptualize it as three installments on screen and Mani has narrated the script to Amitji. He is taking his time to decide whether he would like to do it. A confirmation from his end is yet to come but he has liked the idea.”