There have been rumours about Vijay Devarakonda headlining the Telugu remake of the Ranveer Singh, Alia Bhatt-starrer Gully Boy. The Hindi film about an aspiring rapper directed by Zoya Akhtar, and co-written by her with Reema Kagti, released last month, and became the second-highest grossing Bollywood film of 2019.
A source close to the actor denied these rumours. “This news is not true, they are just rumours. There has been no confirmation regarding a Telugu remake or Vijay Devarakonda’s participation,” the source said. According to reports, however, the Telugu remake rights have already been acquired and a confirmation is awaited.
Incidentally, Vijay Devarakonda was also being considered for the Ranveer Singh-starrer 83. The movie is based on India’s 1983 World Cup win, directed by Kabir Khan. Ranveer plays the role of captain Kapil Dev, and Vijay Deverakonda and Allu Arjun were considered for Srikkanth’s role. But Jiiva later came on board because the makers wanted to cast a Tamil actor.
The Arjun Reddy star is currently busy with the multi-lingual Dear Comrade. This is his 11th film, and is written and directed by Bharat Kamma. He plays a student leader in the film, Rashmika Mandanna stars as a State-level cricket player. Shruti Ramachandran also has an important role. Music for the movie is by Justin Prabhakaran, cinematography is by Sujith Sarang and editing by Sreejith Sarang.
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Work on the film faced a road-block recently because Devarakonda fell ill after shooting round the clock. He was hospitalised, and later said that he would get back in action soon. Dear Comrade is currently the only project he is working on. The film was supposed to release in May, but got postponed to June 6 to avoid a box-office clash with Suriya-starrer NGK, which is releasing both in Tamil and Telugu. Directed by Selvaraghavan, NGK also stars Sai Pallavi and Rakul Preet.