Allu Arjun is all set to join director Gunasekhar’s ‘Rudhramadevi’ to essay the role of Gona Ganna Reddy. “His character Gona Ganna Reddy is very youthful, dynamic and adventurous giving an impression of hero characters in Disney films. He is already being trained in horse riding and sword fighting. Catherine Tresa is playing Anamika Devi, a pair to Gona Ganna Reddy,” says filmmaker Gunasekhar who is carving out this film as India’s 1st 3D historic bilingual film with top actors and technicians. The film starring Anushka and Rana Daggubati in the lead roles, was launched in February 2013 and still under production. According to Gunasekhar, the film will be completed by July end and will get released in this year only. He organized a press meet on Saturday to brief Allu Arjun’s character ‘Gona Ganna Reddy’ in the film.
Gunasekhar said, ““To make historical movies like ‘Rudhramadevi’ we need high technical values. But above that, we need a very good casting who can justify the characters. I’m lucky to get renowned artists like Anushka, Krishnam Raju, Prakash Raj, Rana Daggubati, Nithya Menon, Suman, Aditya Menon, Jayaprakash Reddy, and Catherine Tresa. Besides Rudhramadevi, another key character in the era of Kakatiya dynasty is Gona Ganna Reddy, which forever remained in the hearts of people. He who belonged to ‘Vardhamanapuram’, presently known as ‘Vaddeman’ located in Mehboob Nagar district. This character is like yet another Robinhood who equally fought for the welfare of the people along with Rudhramadevi. It is an easy going youthful warrior character that can face any problem with courage and bravery. Even though the role of this character is small in the film, it would leave an equal impression of Rudhramadevi. Even though it is a special character, after watching this movie this character will stay in our hearts along with Rudhramadevi. Therefore I had a tough time in choosing the actor for this role. But I’m happy to announce that the youth icon Allu Arjun came forward to do this cameo, who’s currently dominating the box-office with ‘Race Gurram’.”
“Like ‘Palnati Brahmanaidu’ is for Late Nandamuri Taraka Rama Rao, ‘Tenali Ramakrishnudu’ to Late Akkineni Nageshwara Rao, ‘Thandra Papa Raidu’ to Krishnam Raju, ‘Annamayya’ to Nagarjuna, ‘Alluri Sitarama Raju’ to Krishna; Allu Arjun will remain in the people’s heart as ‘Gona Ganna Reddy’ in the history of Telugu cinema and also be an inspiration for the young heroes to play the historic characters.”
“With the success of this film, I will pay off the long pending debt to Bunny for accepting this role. The ‘Gona Ganna Reddy’ character would attract people from all walks of life. It’s on par with hero characters of Disney movies that are adventurous, dynamic and lovable. Catherine is playing Anamika Devi opposite Gona Ganna Reddy.”
“Even though ‘Rudhramadevi’ is a historical film, I hope it will reach the audiences of all segments with it 3D effects and the screen presence of the Youth Icon Allu Arjun. Bunny is already getting trained in horse riding and swordsmanship. We are planning to complete the picturization by the end of July and release the film in 2014 only,” said Gunashekar, the director cum producer of ‘Rudhramadevi’.