Priyamani to play investigative officer in Cyanide

Priyamani will play a senior police officer in National award-winning filmmaker Rajesh Touchriver’s next film ‘Cyanide’, based on the crimes of serial killer Cyanide Mohan. The film is expected to go on floors soon

Producer Pradeep Narayan of Middle East Cinema Pvt Ltd has said that Siddique, who has acted in more than 300 movies and has won Nandi, Filmfare and Kerala State awards, has now come on board for ‘Cyanide’. “He won the Nandi for ‘Naa Bangaru Thalli’ in Telugu. Kannada actor Rangayana Raghu, who has worked on more than 250 movies and won the Karnataka state award twice and Filmfare awards multiple times as a character actor, is also on board. Besides, acclaimed Tamil and Malayalam actors like Manikantan Achari (winner of a Kerala state award), Sreejith Ravi (who has done more than 150 movies), and Prashant Alexander have also been added to the cast list of this movie,” the producer added.

‘Cyanide’ has a super-talented personality. Sunil Babu, the production designer for more than 1,000 movies across multiple languages (including for blockbusters such as ‘Gajini’, ‘Pa’, ‘Special 26’, ‘Lakshya’, ‘Maharshi’, ‘Oopiri’, ‘Panja’, and ‘Urumi), is on board. “Around five sets have to be created for our movie,” producer Pradeep Narayanan added.

Producer K Niranjan Reddy said that the film is based on Cyanide Mohan, who became the stuff of media stories. “The point director Rajesh Touchriver has highlighted should make the audience sit up and take notice,” he added. “The reason why we started Prime Show Entertainment was to make films of national and international repute, and that’s why we have teamed up with Middle East Pvt Ltd to make this movie,” he added.

Cyanide Mohan has killed more than 20 women with cyanide after sexually assaulting them, and running away with their gold ornaments. This is the first time such a story is going to be told on the Telugu screen, the producers said. “Everyone knows about the Cyanide Mohan case that we have taken as inspiration for the movie, but we have told this story a bit differently,” revealed director Rajesh Touchriver.

The makers are planning to release it in five languages, including Malayalam, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, and Kannada. The Hindi version will have actor Yashpal Sharma playing character of Priyamani in Cyanide. Telugu actor and filmmaker Tanikella Bharani, Tamil actor Sriman and a host of other South Indian actors are also part of the cast. The shoot will commence sometime in January 2021 in locations spread across Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Goa, Mangalore, Mysore, Coorg, Madikeri and Kasargod.

Priyamani has also signed another multi-lingual film titled Quotation Gang. Director Vivek, who will be making his debut with the Arun Vijay-starrer Boxer, will helm Quotation Gang. The film will be released in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam, and the first look was released by director Lokesh Kanagaraj recently.

Priyamani currently has a long line up for interesting projects including Narappa, Virata Parvam: 1992 and Maidaan. Naarappa, the Telugu remake of Asuran, is being directed by Srikanth Addala. Venkatesh and Priyamani play the lead roles in this film, which is being bankrolled by the former’s brother Suresh Babu in association with Kalaipuli S Thanu under their banners Suresh Productions and V. Creations respectively.