Mohanlal, currently working on Tharun Moorthy's film, will next team up with director Vishnu Mohan, who earlier made Meppadiyan and Kadha Innuvare. Gokulam Gopalan's Sree Gokulam Movies is backing the film, tentatively titled L 367.
Ever since its announcement on Republic Day, there have been talks about the film being based on Operation Ganga, an evacuation mission carried out in 2022 by the Indian government to rescue its citizens stranded in neighboring countries of Ukraine during the Russian invasion. When we reached out to Vishnu for a confirmation, he was tight-lipped about it, but agreed that the film is inspired by true events. "It's still early days, but I can clarify that it is based on multiple real incidents," said Vishnu, while stressing that "it is not a regular army-based film."
The director, who is also penning the script, notes that he has been working on the project for some time, which has involved extensive research. "With this subject, there are a lot of limitations on how to condense it into a feature format. I went around and met a lot of people related to these incidents to learn about the different possibilities."
Planned as a pan-India project, the film, according to Vishnu, will feature artists and technicians from film industries across the country and beyond. "We have been trying to put things together ever since we got the confirmation from Lalettan around ten months back. It has been almost three months since we began pre-production, and except for one technician, we have confirmed all the others." The team plans to start shooting by the end of May, with Mohanlal expected to join later on after he wraps up Tharun's film. Apart from India, shooting has also been planned in foreign locations.
After Kadha Innuvare, Vishnu was supposed to collaborate on a film with Prithviraj Sukumaran, but the director says they mutually decided to push it to give precedence to L 367. "When I told Prithvi about this Lalettan project, he urged me to take it up immediately and not lose the opportunity. Our film will definitely happen after our existing commitments are done."