Who will headline Rohit Padaki’s Uttarakaanda? Will it be Dhananjaya, Pramod, Shiva Rajkumar or someone else?

It’s been nearly two weeks since KRG Studios, one of the leading distribution houses in Kannada cinema, which ventured into production with last year’s Rathnan Prapancha, announced its third project, Uttarakaanda. Rathnan Prapancha was directed by Rohit Padaki and had Dhananjaya in the lead. While Dhananjaya is headlining the banner’s second film Hoysala, which is currently in production, for their third venture, they are collaborating with Rohit yet again, with Charanraj onboard for the music.

Strangely, there’s been no word since on the project, which will be a gangster tale set in North Karnataka. But netizens have been busy speculating about who could headline the film, considering that the banner has shown an affinity towards repeating talent that it has worked with earlier. In fact, when Uttarakaanda was announced, the first name that came up was of Dhananjaya, which was followed closely by Pramod, who’d played a pivotal role in Rathnan Prapancha as Udal Babu Rao and quite literally stole the show.

Eventually Pramod, emerged the fan favourite, although names like those of Century Star Shiva Rajkumar and Rishab Shetty also came up. Pramod, who has a couple of projects lined up for release, has just begun work on a film with Pruthvi Ambaar called Bhuvanam Gaganam. While he is committed to Premiere Padmini 2 as well, that will take off only once Jaggesh finishes his current projects.

Uttarakaanda, according to the makers, is to take off in January next year, and netizens reckon that Shiva Rajkumar has way too many commitments to accommodate the film then. This would mean that Dhananjaya, who has wound up most of his current projects and is focusing on Hoysala now, will be free by then, as will Pramod.

Could it be that the team will go with one of them or are we looking at some fresh casting choices for this gangster tale?