Dhananjay, who is currently on a project-bagging spree, has a variety of characters to fit in to. He is an actor who chose to play an antagonist and a police officer in films like Yuvarathnaa, Pogaru and Salaga, respectively, and is equally in demand to play the lead role. The hero of Suri Popcorn Monkey Tiger, helmed by Suri, and Prabhu Srinivas-upcoming directorial Daali, now has yet another project -- Badava Rascal -- falling in his kitty. Dhananjay will be joining hands with Shankar, who will be making his directorial debut. The latter has previously assisted director Guruprasad and a couple of other directors, and this will be his first independent outing.
The film, produced by Gujjal Talkies, will be the first venture of Gujjal Purushotham. Interestingly, this will also be the first project for Dhananjay as a producer, who is collaborating with Gujjal Talkies. He will be bankrolling the film under the banner of Daali Pictures. While the actor and the director are said to be batchmates, Purushotham has been closely associated with Dhananjay from the time of Tagaru, when he worked as an executive producer, and the actor played villain for the first time.
The title, Badava Rascal, a slang popularly used in Kannada movies, was with director Yogaraj Bhat, who gave it away on request. The muhurath has been fixed for August 23, the team is planning to start shooting in September. An announcement will be made on Monday with Shivarajkumar officially launching a poster and title. The film is said to be a pucca commercial entertainer, and is expected to show Dhananjay in a different avatar.
With Dhananjay in the lead role, the makers have already fixed the lead heroine, and have brought Amrutha Iyengar on board. The actor worked with Dhananjay in Suri Popcorn Monkey Tiger, and this will be their second project together. Amrutha’s other projects include Love Mocktail with actor-director Krishna, and she is paired opposite Chiranjeevi Sarja in a film directed by Shiva Tejas. The makers of Badava Rascal have signed up Vasuki Vaibhav to score the music and Preetha Jayaram as the DOP.