HIGHLIGHTS

After tasting success with remakes like ‘Drushyam’ and ‘Guru,’ seasoned star Venkatesh has agreed to reprise…

After tasting success with remakes like ‘Drushyam’ and ‘Guru,’ seasoned star Venkatesh has agreed to reprise the role of Tamil star Dhanush in the Telugu remake of ‘Asuran,’ to be produced by Kalaipuli Dhanu and Suresh Babu. “Venkatesh was impressed with the action film which depicts the age-old conflict between lower and upper caste people in villages in a hard-hitting way. He felt that that film provides him an opportunity to showcase his fiery side after a gap,” says a source, close to the actor.

“Actually, Venkatesh also wanted to do the remake of another Tamil blockbuster ‘Vikram Vedha’ and his team even worked on the script for a year before Venkatesh dropped the plan since he felt that slumlord roles doesn’t connect well with Telugu audience,” the source adds. The 50-plus-star, who bounced back into reckoning with fan-centric ‘F2’ relying on his flair for comedy and delivered the top grosser of his career. “He always wanted to explore roles with different shades and has been in touch with talented Tamil filmmakers. They keep discussing scripts and this time he has chosen ‘Asuran’ which wowed critics as well as Tamil viewers across the world,” the source points out. In fact, Venkatesh is one of the few Telugu stars to deliver more blockbusters with remakes in the last two decades. He reprised the roles of Tamil stars like Prabhu(Chanti), Bhagyaraj (Abbayigaru and Sundarakanda), Karthick (Raja) and Sarath Kumar (Suryavamsam) to carve a niche for himself.