The Ultimate star Ajith

Ajith’s ‘Mankatha’ is changing to top gear sooner than expected and Venkat Prabhu is in full control of the game. The director is planning to have all the songs ready before the shoot starts and Yuvan Shankar Raja is also matching the spirit of Venkat Prabhu and recording them. As always, ‘Mankatha’ will also have terrific songs, Yuvan says. The highlight of the music album and also the film later is going to be a song sung by Ilaiyaraja and Yuvan Shankar Raja together. It is for the first time that this dad-son combo has rendered their voices to feature in the same song. It’s going to be a treat, you bet. And on the field, the shooting of Mankatha will start on 25th October. Venkat Prabhu is planning the release of the film next year on Ajith's birthday which is May 1.

Looks like CWG 2010 and Mankatha share certain similarities as the issues take rise during the pre-planning phase. Lots of issues running on and finally as the game takes off, it’s a non-stop treat for the masses. Similarly, Mankatha had whole of perplexing issues as the shooting has been delayed from a month time. It was due to certain modifications over the script and casting the actors. Finally as everything is set to get-go on floors, Yuvan Shankar Raja has completed scoring the title track of ‘Mankatha’. Usually Yuvan Shankar Raja scores music for Venkat Prabhu’s films within short span of time as the songs ‘Vazhkaiya Yosiganda’ from ‘Chennai 600028’ and ‘Dosth’ in ‘Saroja’ were composed within couple of hours. But this time, since it’s a very significant film with a bigger star value, Yuvan Shankar Raja will take more time in composing this album.

‘Chennai 600028’ was about sports. ‘Saroja’ was a thriller. And his last venture ‘Goa’ was a romantic entertainer. But a common thread in all these three films of Venkat Prabhu is comedy.

For some time now there was confusion about who would direct Ajith’s 50th film.Earlier, Gowtham Menon was supposed to wield the megaphone for this film, which is produced by Dayanidhi Azhagiri of Cloud Nine Productions.Now we hear that Gowtham Menon has walked out of the film due to other projects. It’s not clear if they have dropped the project or if it is likely to happen in future. As far as the 50th film is concerned, Venkat Prabhu will direct it. The film is tentatively titled ‘Mangaatha’ and will be a multi-starrer. Venkat Prabhu is currently holding talks with a Tollywood superstar for playing another lead role. Venkat Prabhu’s cousin Yuvan Shankar Raja willscore the music while Sakthi Saravanan is expected to handle the camera. As of now, Venkat Prabhu is in Hyderabad, discussing the script with few actors and official confirmations pertaining to his project will be made shortly as the producers plan to commence the shooting by the first week of August.