Venkat Prabhu on possibility of Mankatha 2 with Ajith: ‘Only he has to say’

Wherever Venkat Prabhu goes, one question keeps following him, and that is: ‘When will he direct Ajith Kumar in Mankatha 2?” Mankatha was a game-changer for both Tamil cinema and Ajith. The film came at a time when Ajith had delivered two back-to-back flops – Aegan and Asal. And Mankatha turned out to be the biggest blockbuster in his career back then. It also had a protagonist who was unabashedly bad and morally corrupt, which was new for the Tamil audience who were used to righteous heroes till then. Ever since the success of the heist film, fans have been waiting for its sequel.

Venkat had earlier said that he has an idea for the second part and didn’t entirely rule out the possibility of a sequel. Recently, the filmmaker was in Hyderabad promoting his upcoming Telugu-Tamil bilingual film Custody. He was asked when Mankatha 2 will happen, and the director smiled and said, “Only Ajith sir has to say that.” He added, “Right after we finished the first part, we discussed doing the second part. We want to do something better than the first part. We keep on discussing but it is not happening.”

Also read | Ajith: The reluctant actor who once aspired to be a superstar

Mankatha is the story of a corrupt police officer who plans to loot a huge sum of unaccounted betting money from an entrepreneur. He teams up with a bunch of rookies, but things go haywire when two in the team double-cross him.

Meanwhile, Venkat Prabhu is all excited about Custody, which marks his first direct Telugu release. It has Naga Chaitanya, Arvind Swami, and Keerthy Shetty in the lead roles. The film also brought together Yuvan Shankar Raja and his father Ilaiyaraaja for the music album and background score. Custody will be released on May 12.