Munnariyippu (2014)

Interesting facts

• Awards: 1 · Nominations: 0. Including: Filmfare Award for Best Film – Malayalam

Munnariyippu (transl. Warning) is a 2014 Indian Malayalam-language psychological experimental thriller film directed by Venu and produced by Ranjith, screenplay by Unni R. The film stars Mammootty and Aparna Gopinath, with Nedumudi Venu, Joy Mathew, Prathap Pothan, Sreeraman, Renji Panicker, Saiju Kurup, Joshy Mathew, and Sudheesh in supporting roles. Prithviraj Sukumaran appears in a cameo role.

Production

Venu was directing a film after 16 years, after his directorial debut Daya (1998) written by M. T. Vasudevan Nair. Venu created an idea including the opening and the conclusion for the plot since 2010. During the intervals between his busy schedule as a cinematographer, his wife and editor Bina Paul advised Venu to develop the thread into a story.

Venu's plan to write the screenplay by himself did not work out. After some days, he employed author and scenarist Unni R. Since then, Unni completed the whole screenplay with dialogues in a short span of time.

Initial choice for protagonist role was either Mammootty or Sreenivasan. Sreenivasan listened the story, but he did not sign in the film due to his highly tight schedule.

After a few months, director Ranjith came in to finance the film. Ranjith narrated the story to Mammootty via phone. Mammootty committed the film within a 10-minute-long phone talk.

In early February 2014, Venu announced that in his upcoming directorial Rima Kallingal would play a role of a journalist who writes the biography of a person released from prison, played by Mammootty. However, by the end of February, Kallingal backed out from the project, citing date issues. The makers then decided to replace the actress by Aparna Gopinath. In late March, actress Muthumani announced that she had signed up in the film.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.