Action star Arjun will play Lord Hanuman in director Krishna Vamsi's to-be-launched mythological fantasy. The drama will also feature Nitin and Aditi Agarwal as lovers.
Vamsi, known for his technical wizardry, has proved his mettle in various genres with films like the violent love story Gulabi (J D Chakravarthy, Maheshwari) and the family entertainer Ninne Pelladatha (Nagarjuna, Tabu).
After his successful patriotic film Khadgam (Srikanth, Prakashraj, Sonali Bendre), Vamsi decided to tread a different path with his new script, which has been described as a 'trendy' socio-fantasy.
In fact, many of Telugu cinema's well-known actors have exhibited a fondness for mythological characters.
The uncrowned king of mythologicals, the late superstar-turned-chief minister N T Rama Rao acted as Krishna in Mayabazaar (S V Ranga Rao, Akkineni Nageshwar Rao), Ravana in Bookailash (S V Ranga Rao, A Nageshwar Rao, Jamuna), Karna and Duryodhana in Dana Veera Sura Karna (Dhoolipaala, Mikkilineni).
ANR played Abhimanyu in Mayabazaar.
Popular villain S V Ranga Rao played Ravana in Sampoorna Ramayanam (Shobhan Babu, Chandrakala) and Duryodhana in Pandava Vanavasam (N T Rama Rao, Kanta Rao, Savitri).
All of them, however, shied away from playing Hanuman, who was generally essayed by character artistes Janardhan and Rajanala.
Arjun is attempting to break tradition by being the first star to play the revered Monkey God. Whether the audience will accept him as Hanuman remains to be seen.
Arjun, a Tamil actor, made inroads in the Telugu industry with films like Mappello Gopaludu, Mavuri Maharaju and Hanuman Junction (Jagapathi Babu, Venu Thottempudi).