"A dream come true to work with Shivanna": actor-director M.G. Srinivas on his upcoming heist-thriller 'Ghost'

M.G. Srinivas celebrates his birthday today and the day has been marked with a rather special announcement. The actor-director will return to his Birbal avatar as he unveils the first look of the second installment of the series which is scheduled to go on floors in 2023. The much-anticipated announcement came as a pleasant surprise to all the fans of the Birbal series who are now waiting for the film to kick off.

On the other hand, M.G. Srinivas, or Srini, is gearing up for arguably the biggest project of his career so far. Titled Ghost, the film will be headlined by the Century Star Shiva Rajkumar with Srini directing the feature which he describes as a high-octane heist thriller. “A first of its kind for Kannada cinema,” says Srini in a rather coy manner as he strives hard with the pre-production of the project. He adds that this is unlike his usual stuff and would not be a comedy in any sense but the challenge would be to render a new and distinct world for his project.

“A lot of the film will be set in prison so the biggest task is with respect to production design. The project evolved a lot over time because I had worked on the story during the lockdown but without any grand plans. When producer Sandesh Nagaraj sir asked me if I had been working on something, I give him a one-liner about this heist thriller called Ghost and he was quite kicked about pitching it to Shivanna. That’s when the idea began to grow in proportion. It’s almost a dream-come-true for me to work with Shivanna on a film of this scale,” he shares.

And to make things better, Ghost will feature Arjun Janya’s music to make this Srini’s maiden collaboration with the star composer. For Janya too, the film will be a new exploration considering the genre and the duo is quite excited about working this.

“I have always been a fan of Arjun sir’s music. Also, when I narrated him the story, he was very excited as he felt he could try something very different for this particular film because of the genre. So, when we started jamming sessions, we came out with some distinct sounds which Arjun sir hadn’t tried till now and it sounded very new,” adds Srinivas.

Ghost is likely to enter production either in August or September but a lot would depend on Shiva Rajkumar’s tight schedule. The film will have Mahen Simha as the cinematographer and Prasanna V.M for dialogues.

On the other hand, M.G. Srinivas will star in an experimental thriller called On Air which has been directed Baahubali writer K.V. Vijayendra Prasad’s former associate, Prashant Sagar.