10 MALAYALAM MOVIES YOU WILL NEVER GET TO WATCH!

Following is a list of Malayalam films with very promising plot premise and even greater team that were unrealized for unforeseen reasons. While in some cases the makers were persistent on an unavailable cast while some others were possibly overambitious for the purse, and some haunted by deaths. 

Shaji N. Karun's prospective film GAADHA featuring Mohanlal

 

10. Swarnachamaram

Dealing with the subject of the often-debated euthanasia, Swanachamaram would have been an important film had they actually made it in 1996. The film was to feature Nadigar Thilagam of Tamil Films Shivaji Ganeshan in Malayalam after a long hiatus. (His previous outing was the film Thacholi Ambu where he played Thacholi Othenanakkuruppu.) Supposed to be directed by Rajeevnath, the film was also to feature Mohanlal and was dropped owing to creative differences and arguments on euthanasia.

9. Kanyakumari to Kasargod

Yesteryear Superstar Prem Nazir planned on his directorial debut with a film featuring Mohanlal. Supposedly a road movie to come out of the Sreenivasan’s writing canon when the writer was in top form, Kanyakumari to Kasargod failed to take off owing to the untimely death of Prem Nazir.

8. Australia

To be directed by Rajiv Anchal featuring Mohanlal as a Formula-Two racing driver, Australia was a big budget film that got canned after a week of shooting. This was in 1992 and way before Anchal’s allegorical Guru went to the Oscars. The footage from that week of production was used in another of his films called Butterflies as a part of its opening credits. The film was also supposed to feature Ramya Krishnan along with Shankar as a close friend of the racing driver. The plotline is supposed to have emphasized on their friendship, and following an accident that disfigures the racing driver, the friend does it all to get him back on track and yada, yada.

7. Swapna-Malika

Have you ever imagined of a film written by the remarkable Mohanlal? Believe it or not, there was a movie he did write called Swapna-Malika that even got made. The production of this film directed by K.A. Devarajan was almost over, and even the trailer was released, but was shut out and shelved for reasons unknown. As for the subject matter, it was a thriller that took off from the disappearance of an oncologist (played by the actor himself) in a bomb blast. A foreign woman he befriends in the recent past sets out to know the truth.

6. Dhanushkodi

Planned after the roaring success of Aryan, this Priyadarshan film was moored in production hell from day one. Featuring Mohanlal, Reghuvaran, Girija Shettar (of Vandanam fame) and Sreenivasan, the film was a big budget crime thriller that soon hit the financial iceberg and sank without a trace. It was written by T. Damodaran, who had written Aaryan, and would later write Abhimanyu and Adwaitham for Priyadashan with successful outcomes, but Dhanushkodi never took off. It was said that the crew could prove the financial feasibility and the project got canned before any loss was incurred. The plot dealt with an undercover cop played by Sreenivasan who infiltrates a drug cartel based in Chennai and the chilling series of events that follow on thin ice.

5. Dulari Harshan

A little after the colossal Manichitrathazhu became all the talk at the National level, Fazil planned to reunite with writer Madhu Muttam on a film featuring Mohanlal and Bollywood actress Sridevi. Although some of his stories were made into films, Manichitrathazhu was the only Malayalam film he had written screenplay for, and then Dulari Harshan came and smoothly got shelved. Not much about the plot is known but it was rumored to be a love story of a Ghazal singer. And that was in 1995. Almost a decade later there were noise about Sibi Malyil’s plan to collaborate with the writer Madhu Muttam on the script, but that energy too seemed to have fizzled out eventually.

4. Arikil Undairunnekil

A biopic on poet Changampuzha Krishna Pillai featuring Fahad Fazil in the lead and directed by Priyanandanan was an promising project to start production in 2012, but nothing is heard about it since. Everybody who had associated with the project earlier suddenly seemed to tread past it without even addressing the elephant in the room. The script had apparently based its facts on Changampuzha- Nakshatrangalude Snehabhajanam by Prof. M.K. Sanu. The project would not only have been an interesting one, but also a very important film that could have shed some light on the life of the writer of Ramanan- one of the earliest bestsellers in Malayalam that was a pastoral elegy written as a play in verse. Scriptwriter Balram Mattannur is said to be gearing up for a directorial debut based on the poet’s life named RAMANAM, also scripted by him. Maybe this is where we will get to see it.

3. Gaadha

Years after the critically and commercially successful Vanaprastham director Sahji N. Karun planned on a film based on the short story ‘Kadal’ by T. Padmanabhan featuring Mohanlal in the lead. As for the central female character, names like Jaya Bachchan, Madhuri Dixit and Juhi Cahwla had variously come up at different instances. A story set in Northern India and based on the fascination for the titular sea of a character that had never seen it was written to have both Malayalam and Hindi dialogues. The movie would have been a grand musical experiment with Indian Classical Music to be performed in symphony orchestra by Zbigniew Preisner whose collaboration with Kieslowski is legendary. The film had apparently been haunted by financial crisis from the start. But gradually news of Mohanlal’s back out and Kamal Haasan’s substitution was afloat. But it’s still not realized. Yet it’s not time to call it an unsuccessful day, since Shaji N. Karun doesn’t easily seem to give up on this one.

2. Kunjan Nambiar

Director Bharathan’s untimely death did not only bring an abrupt end to his own aspirations and dreams, but also to the creative spell that kept the Audience enchanted through the golden age of Malayalam cinema. His most ambitious yet unfulfilled dream was the biopic on the life and time of the visionary poet and satirist Kunjan Nambiar. The illustrious life of Nambiar set against an eventful backdrop of Kerala History would have been a breathtaking trip in the hands that weaved gold with the fabulous Vaishali and the fabled Venkalam. Bhaathan had visualized the film through a series of paintings and had plans of casting Jayaram in the lead, but it never took off. He was soon gone, and so was a dream project that had immense potential. Jayaram who was put on a strict diet to get into the wiry physique of the poet, was deprived of a role of a lifetime.

1. Kamamohitham

For all the movie buffs in Kerala in the early 1990s that were excited about a promising K.G. George film featuring Mohanlal and Mammootty based on literary lion C.V. Balakrishnan’s mythological Magnus opus Kamamohitham, there was no bigger disappointment than comprehending its unforeseen doom. The story of Sage Jajali (to be played by Mammootty) who transmigrates into the body of a prosperous landlord Sagaradathan (by Mohanlal) that forms the crux of one of the most profound works on the consequences of ‘karma’ in Malayalam literature would have been a sure winner in the hands of these masters, but was sadly never to be.

In the last few years, talks about its revival has once again started taking the rounds with speculations of Mohanlal playing both Jajali and Sagaradathan this time. Fingers crossed about the likely fruition of the project, but the magic of the Mammootty-Mohanlal-K.G. George combination on this psychological trip, you will never get to see.