Nag walks out of Mani’s film

“Yes, I am doing a film with Mani Ratnam. Mahesh Babu will also be in the lead. And it’s in Telugu. Mani gave me a 40-minute narration, and I was clean-bowled by what I heard," Nagarjuna was quoted as saying recently. However, for the diehard fans of the actor, who badly wanted him to reunite with the acclaimed Tamil maker, especially after the way Mani portrayed him in ‘Geetanjali’ more than two decades ago, the news seems to be short-lived. Here is the heart breaker: the seasoned actor has apparently pulled out of the project.

Sources close to the project confirmed that the Superstar decided to opt out after he came to know that Mahesh’s participation in the film still hangs in balance. An official confirmation regarding this is awaited. We’ve also learnt that Nag has only green lit Vamsi Paidipally’s project which also features NTR in the lead role. The script work is going on and it would be bankrolled by PVP pictures. That brings us to the question as to what happened to Sudhir Varma’s film. “No, the question doesn’t arise. The ‘Swamy Ra Ra’ fame director is penning a film for Nag’s elder son Chaitanya,” sources added.

Meanwhile, Nag is pulling out all stops to ensure that ‘Manam’, which is his late dad ANR’s last outing on the silver screen, is promoted at length. Besides roping in Big B Amitabh Bachchan for a cameo a fortnight ago, the actor is using every opportunity to promote the film on social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook. He has uploaded a peppy party number, ‘piyo piyo re’, from the film on to his Twitter account on Thursday.