Kamal Haasan resumes Sabaash Naidu shoot; will long-delayed film finally get back on track?

Chennai: Actor-filmmaker Kamal Haasan will finally resume shooting for upcoming trilingual comedy Sabaash Naidu from later this month after being out of action for nearly six months due to a leg injury. [caption id=“attachment_3183724” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Kamal Haasan. Firstpost file photo/Naresh Sharma[/caption] In July 2016, Haasan fractured his leg after he slipped and fell from the stairs of his office. “From the third week of January, he plans to resume shooting. He has just returned from London where he had undergone medical checkup with an orthopedic. He’s fit to start shooting, and the next schedule will take place in Hyderabad,” a source from the film’s unit told IANS. Sabaash Naidu, a spin-off on Haasan’s Balram Naidu character from Dasavatharam, is being simultaneously shot in Tamil, Telugu and Hindi. The film also stars Ramya Krishnan, Shruti Haasan and Brahmanandam. Ever since it was announced, Sabaash Naidu has been in the news.

Initially, it was because Kamal was teaming up with his daughter Shruti Haasan for the very first time, for a film. Then, it was Sabaash Naidu’s US schedule that had fans interested.

However, over 2016, the project has been plagued by one hurdle after another. It began with director TK Rajeev Kumar having to opt out of the project because he was diagnosed with Lyme Disease. Kamal stepped into the breach and took up the director’s mantle himself. Then, just when things were beginning to get back on track, there was more trouble — this time because Sabaash Naidu’s editor James Joseph pulled out. Joseph’s wife had an accident, and he had to rush back from the US to be by her side. That isn’t all — reports in various media outlets suggested that Kamal was unhappy with the work of cinematographer Jaya Krishna Gummadi, because the latter was unable to deal with the simultaneous shooting of Sabaash Naidu in Tamil, Telugu and Hindi. It wasn’t just the changing line-up among the technical crew that beset Sabaash Naidu — In July, Kamal suffered the injury that has taken a very long while to heal. With so many unforeseen issues, Sabaash Naidu — which was supposed to release in September 2016 — was pushed to a 2017 release. In the interim, Kamal and his partner Gautami Tadimalla (she was working on the film’s costumes) also separated.