Director Ram Gopal Varma has possibly revived the Sasikala biopic announced in 2017, with a poster for the film which he released yesterday. Said to be based on the life of VK Sasikala and Jayalalithaa, the poster reads, “The story of a relationship set against merciless men, prisons and Mannargudi gangs.” The caption says, “Love is dangerously political.”
HAPPY TO ANNOUNCE! ???COMING VERY SOON! ??? pic.twitter.com/ZccF4mufNN
— Ram Gopal Varma (@RGVzoomin) March 31, 2019
A source close to the film told Silverscreen that the project is still not confirmed and the director makes announcements on social media to find out if there is an interest for the film. “If there’s a traction for the announcement, then the project will happen. And this announcement has garnered interest,” the source says.
When the biopic was announced in 2017, Ram Gopal Varma made a series of tweets saying that the film will be ‘unimaginably shocking,’ and only Mannargudi Mafia members will understand it.
"Sasikala" is going to be the story of the story behind Sasikala in front of Sasikala and only Manargudi mafia members will understand this pic.twitter.com/SvOSQtLPOQ
— Ram Gopal Varma (@RGVzoomin) February 16, 2017
He added that Sasikala was, “Don Vito Corleone of the Mannargudi mafia family. She doesn’t even offer for you to refuse.”
He said he will show the true relationship between Jayalalithaa and Sasikala in his film. “The truth behind Jayalalithaa and Sasikala’s relationship, from what Poes Garden servants told me, is unimaginably shocking and I will show it in my film.”
This was right after Jayalalithaa’s death and Sasikala’s imprisonment in the dis-proportionate assets case. The biopic’s poster makes references to VK Sasikala’s relationship with the former CM, and the Mannargudi mafia gang who are Sasikala’s family members believed to run several parts of Tamil Nadu when AIADMK is in power.
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VK Sasikala and Jayalalithaa’s friendship dates back to the 1980s when Jayalalithaa was the propoganda secretary of AIADMK and assisted MG Ramachandran, the then party president.
Post Jayalalithaa’s death in 2016, five biopics on her life have been announced by director AL Vijay, Priyadarshini, Bharathiraja, Lingusamy, and Gautham Vasudev Menon. Ram Gopal Varma’s is the first biopic to focus on VK Sasikala’s relationship to Jayalalithaa.
Meanwhile, the release of Ram Gopal Varma’s upcoming biopic Lakshmi’ NTR was stayed by the Andhra Pradesh High Court a day before it was scheduled to hit screens. The case will come up for hearing again on April 3. Lakshmi’s NTR is a biopic on the last few days of the Telugu actor and politician NT Rama Rao, and the changes in his political and personal life after his marriage to Lakshmi Parvathy.