'Nayagan' - Sathyaraj
Have you ever come across this one? Most probably a big NO, right? But Maniratnam had plans to rope in Satyaraj for the Velu Naicker role. Till date, Nayagan is the only Tamil movie to feature in Times best 100 movies of all time. Satyaraj did the negative role in Maniratnam’s debut movie in Tamil ‘Pagal Nilavu’ and no wonder he was one among the choice for Maniratnam.
Ghajini - Ajith (mirattal)
A.R. Murugadoss’s ‘Ghajini’ was initially titled as ‘Mirattal’ and the newspapers carried the posters of Ajith. The directors have trusted the Ajith factor since he made his first movie with him. But due to various reasons the movie went to Suriya, and became a monstrous hit in Suriya’s career.
'Kakha Kaakha' – Ajith
Gautham Vasudev Menon has recently said that Ajith was the initial choice for ‘Kaakha Kaakha’ and he approached Vikram too for the same role. After hovering around with the script for more than 6 months; he eventually zeroed it on Suriya.
'Mudhalvan' - Rajni – Vijay
Shankar’s pet project – The one day CM storyline was initially offered to Rajini, and Shankar tried his best to cast Vijay. Had those two people acted in Mudhalvan; the movie would have garnered more epicness.
'I' – Rajni
After the release of ‘Enthiran’ Rajini mentioned that Shankar had offered him three stories; ‘Sivaji’, ‘Enthiran’, and one more on the lines of Mr. India/Hunchback character, which is nothing else than ‘I’. Well, comparing Rajini & Vikram is not an easy task, but just an imagination itself might give goose bumps to Rajini’s fans.
'Ko' – Simbu
K.V. Anand has issued press releases & announced that STR will act in the political commercial thriller and Simbu opted to drop himself out of the project in the last second. Jiiva replaced him, and the movie went to become a huge hit.
'Dheena' – Vijay
A.R. Murugadoss has learnt the art of direction under S.J. Suryah and he would have closely seen the skills of Vijay & Ajith. He offered ‘Dheena’ to Vijay initially, and later the project went to Ajith. The word ‘Thala’ gave an all new identity to Ajith & it went on to become a synonym for Ajith.
'Naan Kadavul' - Ajith
Of all the missed opportunities; this one is the biggest miss for Ajith. Bala does not pick someone just like that for his lead role, however, he believed that Ajith could pull off ‘Naan Kadavul’ but once again the lady luck did not smile on him. The project went Arya, and the rest is history!
'New' - Ajith Jyothika
After delivering a smash hit, the ‘Vaali’ combo joined together once again to create something ‘New’. The movie posters became the cynosure of all eyes. After hitting the barricades quite a few times with regards to production, S.J. Suryah directed the telugu version with Mahesh Babu, and decided to cast himself for Tamil.
Endhiran - Kamal
Kamalhassan & Priety Zinta were the premier choice for Shankar, and the team did shoot for some days. The Sci-Fi love story was put on the back burner for ten long years only to get bigger and better, The movie went on to feature Rajini – Aishwarya Rai, and broke all the records of Tamil cinema.
- IndiaGlitz Tamil
