In his illustrious career spanning over five decades, actor Kamal Haasan has starred in over 200 films across various languages. From a child actor to emerging as one of the best actors of the country, Haasan has come a long way with many memorable films and roles to his credit. As the star turned 66, we take a look at six highly anticipated projects of the Vishwaroopam actor – which he announced at different stages of his career - but never went on to make and release them for various reasons.
KG
In 2004, during one of his visits to Bangalore, Kamal Haasan met filmmaker Singeetham Srinivasa Rao and the duo decided to join hands for a Tamil-Kannada cop thriller titled KG. The film was to feature no leading lady. Even though Haasan was really excited about the project, he couldn’t immediately work on it as he was occupied with Vasool Raja MBBS, the Tamil remake of Munnabhai MBBS. A few years later, Haasan had planned to revisit KG with actor Ramesh Aravind, who was supposed to make his directorial debut. The project never got made and the reasons still remain unknown.
Marmayogi
After the phenomenal success of Dasavatharam, it was announced that Marmayogi would be Kamal’s next big project. Even though first pondered soon after the release of his 2001 film Aalavandhan, it was not until the release of Dasavatharam did Haasan think of announcing Marmayogi as his next project. Tipped to be a Hindi-Tamil film bilingual set in 7th century, the project was to take-off in 2008 after a year being spent on its pre-production. Actors Venkatesh, Trisha, Hema Malini and Mohanlal were signed for the project and a photo-shoot was held in early 2008. However, Pyramid Saimira, the company which had agreed to bankroll the project decided to back off after the debacle of their then release Kuselan starring Rajinikanth.
19 Steps
Somewhere in 2008, Kamal Haasan agreed to star in an Indo-Japanese production titled 19 Steps, which was to be directed by Bharat Bala. Written by Malayalam writer MT Vasudevan Nair, the film was set to tell the tale of a Samurai warrior trying to conquer the ancient Indian martial art of Kalaripayattu. Kamal Haasan was set to play the role of an Indian martial arts guru. As part of the initial casting, Asin and Tadanobu Asano were signed and the project was to be produced by Walt Disney on a large scale and major portion of the shooting was to take place in Kerala. For reasons still unknown, 20 days before the start of the shoot, the project was shelved indefinitely.
The Tooth of Buddha
In 2009, reports emerged that filmmaker Mysskin and Kamal Haasan were planning to join hands for a martial-arts based film called The Tooth of Buddha. After projects such as Marmayogi and 19 Steps failing to take off, Haasan was quite invested in this film and he even approached many US-based studios for funding, but unfortunately things never worked in favour of the project, which was eventually dropped. In several of his interviews, Mysskin has said that he hopes he gets to make the film someday.
Sabash Naidu
Kamal Haasan’s trilingual comedy Sabash Naidu has been jinxed from the day it went on floors. The film’s crew so far has been reshuffled thrice, starting from the exit of director TK Rajeev Kumar, who was originally supposed to direct the project. Finally, when Kamal himself took over the reins of the project and successfully completed the US schedule in 2016, it looked like everything was hunky dory until the veteran fell and fractured his leg, resulting in the shoot being stalled. It’s been over three years and there’s been no update on whether will return to complete shooting Sabash Naidu, which was supposed to be a spin-off on the popular character from his film Dasavatharam. Actor Shruti Haasan and Brahmanandam were signed and even participated in the first schedule of the project.
Kamal Haasan’s Hollywood project
In 2012, well-known Hollywood producer Barrie Osborne expressed his interest in making an English project with Kamal Haasan, who would go on to direct the film and play the lead role as well. In 2013, Kamal announced a project titled Moo, which was about three lives and it was to be made in English as well with the title Triple Impact. For reasons never unknown, the project failed to take off and was shelved indefinitely.
