Deepika not to pair up opposite Rajini in Rana

For those fans of superstar Rajinikanth who are waiting for their ‘Thalaivar’ to pair up opposite Bollywood starlet in a typical ‘feature film’ on-screen, the disappointing news is that it might not happen at all. Though Deepika is Rajini’s heroine in his upcoming film Kochadaiyaan which is a 3-D animation film, the fans were waiting to see them pairing up again for a usual motion picture.

Rajini was paired opposite Deepika in the now-abandoned Rana whose muhurat was held in Chennai on the 29th of April last year, the same evening when Rajini fell ill. It started a period when Rajini got admitted to two leading hospitals in Chennai before being ‘air-lifted’ to Singapore in the last week of May for the treatment of his kidneys at Mount Elizabeth Hospital, said to be the best in the region for such treatment.

K.S. Ravikumar, who was to direct Rana, still holds that the film would be re-started some time in future. Ravikumar has penned the story, screenplay and dialogues of Kochadaiyan besides supervising the direction of debutant director Soundarya. Soon after Rajini recovered from his illness completely, he started working in Kochadaiyan after which he is likely to star in Rana.

Talking about re-starting Rana, Ravikumar conceded that the film would indeed start by the end of this year but has reiterated that Deepika Padukone won’t play Rajini’s heroine in the film. “Deepika has been paired opposite Rajini Sir in Kochadaiyan; as such, we don’t want to repeat the pairing so soon. We shall soon decide as to who would be the heroine,” says Ravikumar.