Indian 2: Priya Bhavani Shankar to play Amrithavalli, replacing Sukanya who essayed it in 1996 original?

The Kamal Haasan starrer Indian - which was shot in 1996, is an important film not only in the actor's repertoire but also in Indian cinema history. It also launched its director Shankar into the commercial arena. In this film, Kamal played the dual role of father and son - the two seen clashing with one of them killing the other.

23 years later, the sequel of this movie is being shot and is named Indian 2. Along with Kamal Haasan, Siddharth, Kajal Agarwal, Bobby Simha, and Rakul Preet Singh, and Priya Bhavani Shankar are playing key roles.

Kamal Haasan will be reprising the role of Senapathi - carrying forward from the 1996-blockbuster film. Actor Siddharth is likely playing his grandson (the son was famously slain in the earlier version, remember?) in the sequel. Music for Indian was by AR Rahman, for Indian 2,

Anirudh Ravichander sets the musical score and Ravi Varma is the cinematographer.

The first schedule shooting began in January 2019 as Kamal Haasan was busy in political activity in the runup to the Lok Sabha polls and Shankar was also tied down with the magnum opus project - the sci-fi film - 2.0 starring Rajinikanth and Akshay Kumar. After a long gap, the second schedule was held in August. Kamal Hassan did the action sequences on a massive set involving 2000 supporting actors in Bhopal and the set cost around Rs 40 crore. Shankar had recently said that Kamal has spoken in Gujarati for the movie. 

In Indian, actress Sukanya had paired up on-screen with the father-character played by Kamal and Manisha Koirala had paired up with the son's character - also played by Kamal. As for Indian 2, it is said that initially, actress Nayanthara was asked to play the role essayed earlier by Sukanya but the former is unable to shell out any dates. After that news around, Kajal Agarwal who is adept at playing even an 85-year-old woman is said to have been approached. However, Kajal too confirmed she is not doing that role.

After a lot of speculation going on over who will play the role essayed by Sukanya in the earlier version, it is now strongly rumoured that actress Priya Bhavani Shankar is all set to step in to pair up with the 90-year-old character to be played by Kamal Haasan. Priya Bhavani Shankar was initially a TV news anchor. She then acted in television serials before finally graduating to acting in the cinema.