How Shankar's Mudhalvan slipped out of Vijay's hands and fell into Arjun's lap; filmmaker reveals

Shankar's Mudhalvan, which starred Arjun Sarja, is a feather in their caps. The 1999 Tamil film was a runaway hit at the box office and won critical appreciation too.

Before Shankar had approached Arjun Sarja, he had offered the film to Rajinikanth and Vijay. Both the stars had reportedly turned down the offer. It was believed that the actors hesitated to accept the offer since it took potshots at the prevalent corruption.

Now, Shankar has reportedly opened up on this project and revealed the reason why Vijay rejected the flick. According to him, his associate had met Thalapathy's father SA Chandrasekhar to discuss about the movie.

However, there were issues over Vijay's dates for Mudhalvan. As a result, the project slipped out of Thalapathy's hands and fell into Arjun Sarja's lap.

After a decade, Shankar and Vijay collaborated for the first time for Nanban, the Tamil remake of blockbuster Hindi film 3 Idiots. Meanwhile, there have been reports of Shankar and Vijay teaming up for Mudhalvan sequel.

In a chat show earlier, the filmmaker was asked who would he like to cast if he ever makes a sequel to Mudhalvan and Shankar had said that it would either be Rajinikanth or Kamal Haasan. But the director pointed out that if the script demands a younger hero, then his choice will be Thalapathy Vijay.