NGK resumes shoot after long gap as Suriya juggles KV Anand's film; makers eye summer 2019 release

Suriya and filmmaker Selvaraghavan have joined hands for the first time in _NGK,_ which has been on the floors for a long time. The title and the first look poster of the highly anticipated film were released on 5 March earlier this year, and since then, the project has faced several setbacks, which eventually led to it missing the Diwali release date.

[caption id=“attachment_4945561” align=“alignnone” width=“825”]  Suriya in a poster of NGK/Image from Twitter.[/caption]

The two major setbacks the film faced were in the form of a 45-day Kollywood shutdown, courtesy a stand-off between the Tamil Film Producers Council (TFPC) and the Digital Service Providers over exorbitant rates charged as Visual Print Fee (VPF), which is the amount paid for presentation of a feature film via digital projection. The team of NGK returned to shoot on 21 April and was still hopeful to release for Diwali and go head-to-head with Vijay-starrer _Sarkar_ at the box office. The second setback was when director Selvaraghavan fell ill and had to undergo a minor surgery. The shoot had to be stalled for a few weeks and this was one of the prime reasons why the film could not make it to theatres for Diwali.

In August, the team resumed shoot briefly but the shoot was once again stalled for reasons quite unknown. There were rumours that the project was put on the back-burner as there was a rift between Suriya and Selvaraghavan. On 3 December, the team finally resumed shoot after a long gap and if everything goes as planned, the shoot will be wrapped up in this 15-day schedule.

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Producer SR Prabhu has revealed that everything is fine between Suriya and Selvaraghavan, and the team is hopeful of wrapping up the final schedule of the shoot peacefully. “Contrary to the rumours, everything is fine between Suriya and Selvaraghavan. One of the reasons for the delay in completion of the project has been Suriya’s effort to juggle two films. He was simultaneously shooting for NGK and KV Anand sir’s film . Because of the change of his looks for Anand sir’s film, it became tough for him to take out time for NGK, and we could not afford to change his look for our film. That is why we decided to wait till he completes his portion for his other project. The final schedule of shoot will last for 15 days, and we will predominantly shoot in Chennai and Kochi,” Prabhu said, adding that Yuvan Shankar Raja has finished composing the songs.

Talking about the release date, Prabhu said that he can only confirm once the post-production works gets completed.  “We don’t know how long the post-production work will take and until we’re sure, we can’t finalise the release date.” However, the industry grapevine is that the makers are eyeing March or April 2019 release. “One of the dates they have in mind is the last week of March. However, a lot depends on other factors like taking care of post-production.”

The film, which was officially launched in February 2018, also stars Rakul Preet Singh and Sai Pallavi as the leading ladies. Not long ago, the makers recreated the town of Ambasamudram on a lavish budget of Rs 3 crore to shoot a crucial portion of the film which will have a simultaneous release in Telugu as well. NGK – which stands for Nandha Gopalan Kumaran – is rumoured to feature Suriya in the role of a leader. When the first look poster was release, Suriya’s look resembled that of revolutionist Che Guevara.