Ponniyin Selvan 1 Unknown Facts: Lesser Known Facts About Mani Ratnam's Multistarrer Magnum Opus!

Ponniyin Selvan 1 AKA PS 1 is the movie that is making the headlines for its ensemble cast and efficient and talented crew. PS 1, which is considered one of the dream projects of Mani Ratnam, is finally seeing the light of the day after several years of struggle, hard work, and toil. The cast and crew have come together to create a wonderful magnum opus taking a bit of history coupled with cinematic liberty. The movie is set for a worldwide grand release very soon.

Here are a few interesting facts about the story, the original literary work, its adaptation into a film, the entire process of production, and many more.

The story:

Ponniyin Selvan is a historical fiction novel written by Kalki Krishnamurthy. The novel is considered one of the best works in Tamil literature so far. It was first published in weekly editions from 1950 to 1954 before coming out in the form of a book in five parts, in the year 1955. The story depicts the life from the early days of Arulmozhi Varman, who came to be known as the great king Rajaraja Chola 1. Writer Kalki has visited Sri Lanka thrice to gather information for the novel and took the liberty of adding some drama and layers to the characters to make it an engaging read.

Rajaraja Chola Empire

Arulmozhi Varman won the provinces of Venadu, Kollam after Kandalur Salai. He conquered the Eastern and Western Chalukyas and a few parts of Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. Tanjore was the capital of the Chola Kingdom and Rajaraja 1 is said to have taken command over some parts of Sri Lanka and Maldives too.

History has it that there was a mystery around the death of king Rajaraja Cholan's elder brother Aditya Karikalan.

Making PS 1 Into A Film

The idea of turning the novel into a full-fledged movie began in the year 1958, when MG Ramachandran(MGR) bought the rights for an amount of Rs 10,000. However, before the shooting commenced, MGR met with an accident and couldn't continue to work on the project even after renewing the rights four years later.

In the year 1994, Mani Ratnam expressed his interest in making PS and termed it his dream project. He worked on the first draft with actor Kamal Haasan who had bought the rights to the film then but the project got shelved. Later there was another attempt in the year 2010. Mani Ratnam announced the project with Vijay and a budget of Rs 100 Crore was fixed. Mahesh Babu was cast as Arulmozhi Varman, who becomes Rajaraja Chola 1. Eventually, the film got shelved for certain reasons which include obtaining permission to shoot in temples and palaces in India.

However, in January 2019, filmmakers were ready to shell out huge bucks for making multistarrer historical films, Mani Ratnam once again attempted to film Ponniyin Selvan, and this time his efforts were successful.

Production

The filming began after the cast was announced and although Mani Ratnam wanted the film to fit in a single stand-alone movie at Rs 500 Crore as budget, later in the production phase he decided to divide it into two parts. Thus PS 1 began to take shape and the film was shot in and across Tamil Nadu, Hyderabad, and Thailand. The crew shot in Thailand for 40 days before returning to India and shooting at Pollachi, Mysore, Orchha, Gwalior, Maheshwar, and other locations for brief schedules. The production got delayed due to the pandemic. The majority part of the shooting took part in Ramoji Film City, Hyderabad.

Post-Production

Actor Vikram is said to have dubbed for his role of Aditya Karikalan in Tamil, Telugu, Hindi, Kannada, and Malayalam. Trisha and Aishwarya Lekshmi have dubbed for their respective roles in Tamil, which Trisha seldom does, despite the fact that her mother tongue is Tamil.

PS 1 is slated for a grand worldwide theatrical release on September 20. Lyca Productions is distributing the film across Tamil Nadu. Shot in Tamil originally, the movie will have a dubbed release in Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, and Hindi. The digital streaming rights of the film were purchased by Amazon Prime Video for an amount of Rs 125 Crore.

Ponniyin Selvan's music and soundtrack is composed by AR Rahman. Thota Tharani took over the production design department and A Sreekar Prasad looked into the film's editing. Ravi Varman ISC cranked the camera while dialogues in Tamil were penned by B Jeyamohan.

PS 1 is a joint production of Mani Ratnam's Madras Talkies and Lyca Productions.