Chiranjeevi's latest film Godfather hit the screens on the occasion of Dasara, on Wednesday, October 5. The movie is a remake of the Malayalam film Lucifer, starring Mohanlal in the lead role. The Godfather team says that the film is an entanglement of family emotions and political drama. While the movie is getting a grand festival release in the Telugu states alongside Nagarjuna’s The Ghost, here is what veteran actor Chiranjeevi had to say about the film a day before its release.
"Every story has a soul. We need to connect to it," said Chiranjeevi, while speaking about Godfather to reporters on Tuesday in Hyderabad. Chiranjeevi, who has starred in hit Telugu remake versions of Tamil and Hindi films like Tagore, Shankar Dada M.B.B.S, and Shankar Dada Zindabad, said that remakes are more challenging for him as he feels he has to improve upon the original version. "It should be a winner even if it's compared," Chiranjeevi said.
He said that it was his son Ram Charan who suggested a remake of Lucifer, after which Chiranjeevi saw the film and found it “incomplete,” as he was not entirely satisfied that it would suit his own image. This remark did not go down well with fans of Mohanlal’s Lucifer, who panned the actor on social media for finding fault with the source material. However, Chiranjeevi also said he was convinced that Lucifer was the kind of film that he should be working on, instead of formulaic films with predictable fight sequences, songs and comedy scenes.
Chiranjeevi said that Ram Charan, who is one of the film’s producers, chose director Mohan Raja, who is often referred to as the ‘king of remakes’ for his successful Tamil remakes of Telugu films. Mohan Raja pitched the Telugu remake with an alternative fresh angle, which impressed him, Chiranjeevi said. Incidentally, Mohan Raja had ended his string of remakes in Tamil with the 2015 film Thani Oruvan, which was then remade in Telugu as Dhruva, starring Ram Charan.
Chiranjeevi further added: "For this film, I worked as hard as I would have worked on an original script. I even forgot that it was a remake. I understood the core of it and kept thinking about ways to present it from a fresh angle. My character in Godfather will be a new one [different from Lucifer]. I even developed my own body language for it."
With Godfather, hardcore Chiranjeevi fans like director Puri Jagannadh and actor Satyadev got the opportunity to work with their favourite actor. "It’s good to work with people who love us. Working with fans was not planned, but it happened and it's good,” Chiranjeevi said. The film also features Salman Khan in a cameo.
The promotions for Godfather have heated up with an impactful dialogue by Chiranjeevi, who has returned to cinema after a brief stint in politics. The dialogue translates to: "I might have stayed away from politics, but politics have not stayed away from me." The film also seems to feature other dialogues that are references to contemporary politics in the Telugu states. Commenting on this interpretation, Chiranjeevi said that all the dialogues in the film were placed because the script demanded them. "It was not planned as a satire on the current political atmosphere. It was part of the film so we have used it,” he said.