Mohanlal to revisit his sporting days as a wrestler for Lijo Jose Pellissery’s next?

The rumour mill has been working overtime ever since it was speculated that acclaimed filmmaker Lijo Jose Pellissery is all set to team with superstar Mohanlal for the first time ever. While initial reports suggested that the duo will be working together in a gangster movie in which the actor will be essaying the role of Mangalore-based Don, it now seems that the actor has rejected that project and instead the two will be collaborating on another subject that has a rooted subject.

The film apparently will be set in Andhra Pradesh and will revolve around submission wrestling aka gatta gusthi. Incidentally, this could have the actor revisiting his sporting days as a wrestler. Mohanlal had won the Kerala State Wrestling Championship in 1977 and was also selected for the national event. But he instead opted for an audition for the movie titled Manjil Virinja Pookal, which marked his first feature film.

Also read: Samyukhta Menon joins Trisha as the second female lead in Mohanlal, Jeethu Joseph’s Ram 

Incidentally, Mohanlal has played the role of a wrestler twice in his career – in the 1985 film Jeevante Jeevan and in VM Vinu’s Lokpal that had one of his avatars as a Sikh named Happy Singh, who practices wrestling in his village. The upcoming Lijo Jose Pellissery film is yet to be confirmed but that actor has been training to get in shape lately.

He had also trained in boxing for Priyadarshan’s planned project that was set to be a tribute to Raging Bull. However, the project has been shelved and the filmmaker will be working on a new thriller that has Shine Tom Chacko and Shane Nigam in the lead.

Mohanlal, meanwhile, is currently in the UK shooting for Jeethu Joseph’s Ram. He will be returning to Kerala next month, before jetting off to Tunisia and Morocco to next two schedules of the action-thriller, which also has Trisha, Indrajith Sukumaran, Adil Hussain and Samyuktha Menon in pivotal roles. Ram will be released in two instalments.