Adoor Gopalakrishnan Confirms Film With Mammootty
The master filmmaker said he couldn’t think of any other actor when he was writing the script
After weeks of rumours of a possible collaboration between director Adoor Gopalakrishnan and Mammootty, the master director has confirmed that his next film will be with the star. He was speaking on the sidelines of a literary event organised in Kerala, and he confirmed this to On Manorama. He went on to add that he kept thinking of Mammootty as he worked on this script and said he couldn’t picture anyone else in that role. He also said that Mammootty had not only agreed to act in the movie but that he would also produce their collaboration under his production company, Mammootty Kampany.
The two had last collaborated on Vidheyan (The Servile) all the way back in 1993. Vidheyan had won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Malayalam and the Best Actor Award for Mammootty. Adoor’s last feature film release was Dileep-Kavya Madhavan’s Pinneyum (Once Again) in 2016.
After returning from a sabbatical due to health-related reasons, Mammootty has completed Mahesh Narayanan’s film titled Patriot (the film will also co-star Mohanlal, Fahadh Faasil and Nayanthara) and is also said to have completed a cameo in the WWE-based wrestling movie Chatha Pacha. His next release is Kalamkaval, expected to be released this week on December 5. In the film, he plays a serial killer, based on a fictionalised account of Cynamide Mohan, a notorious criminal. What makes Kalamkaval special is how it comes right on the heels of two great Mammootty performances in negative shades, Bramayugam (2024), for which he won the Kerala State Award for Best Actor and the equally successful Puzhu (2022), said filmmaker Jithin in a recent interview with THR India. “Like his fans, I too love this phase of his career,” he says, noting how difficult it may have been to cast a superstar of his calibre in a role like this if Jithin belonged to any other Indian movie industry.
As for Adoor, he was most recently in the news for having made several controversial remarks during the closing ceremony of Kerala’s film conclave in Thiruvananthapuram in August. He is reported to have spoken about the State Government’s initiative to promote SC/ST and women filmmakers and called for better training before being allotted funds.