Movie Name: 2.0 (2016)
Director: S. Shankar
Producer: Subaskaran Allirajah
Writter: S. Shankar, Jeyamohan
Star Cast: Rajinikanth, Akshay Kumar, Amy Jackson
Music: A. R. Rahman
Genre: Science fiction film
Release date: 2017
Country: India
Language : Tamil and Hindi
Movie Stories: 2.0 is an upcoming Indian Tamil–Hindi science fiction film directed by S. Shankar. A sequel to Enthiran (2010), the film will feature Rajinikanth reprising the roles of Dr. Vaseegaran and Chitti, alongside Akshay Kumar and Amy Jackson. Produced by Subaskaran Allirajah of Lyca Productions, the film is expected to have the biggest budget ever in the history of Indian cinema surpassing the Baahubali series. The soundtrack album will be composed by A. R. Rahman while the dialogues, cinematography, editing and art direction are handled by Jeyamohan, Nirav Shah, Anthony and T. Muthuraj respectively. The film is scheduled for a 2017 release.
The commercial success of Enthiran (2010) prompted the makers of the film to immediately consider making a sequel and by March 2011, the original film's cinematographer, Rathnavelu revealed that initial pre-production work on a second part had begun with the same technical team. S. Shankar, the director of Enthiran, moved on to work on Nanban (2012) and I (2015) and plans to reunite with the same producers as the original was dropped, with Shankar revealing that he was unsure if the film "will happen at all" during an interview in 2014. While finishing the production of I, Shankar drafted the scripts of three more feature films, including that of a sequel to Enthiran.
Pre-production works for the film were reported to have started in June 2015 with Lyca Productions deciding to finance the project. Along with Shankar and Rajinikanth, composer A. R. Rahman and editor Anthony were retained to work on the film from the original, while Jeyamohan was added to the team to help write dialogues. Shankar also began briefing the film's art director T. Muthuraj and VFX supervisor Srinivas Mohan about their involvement in the film. Nirav Shah joined the technical team as a cinematographer in mid 2015 and visited specialist studios in the United States to research filming methods for 3D shoots. Jeyamohan finished work on the script of the film in September 2015 and revealed that the story would be a direct continuation from the 2010 film, with filming only set to start following the completion of Rajinikanth's commitments in Kabali (2016). The original film's dialogue writer, Madhan Karky, helped Jeyamohan on some of the more technical dialogues in the script.
Shankar held initial discussions with Kamal Haasan, Aamir Khan and then Vikram about portraying a further role, though neither of the two actors signed on to appear in the film. Subsequently the team held talks with Hollywood actor Arnold Schwarzenegger for the role, who agreed to work on the film for a record remuneration. The makers then opted against signing Schwarzenegger, though there have been conflicting reasons regarding this decision. British actress Amy Jackson signed on to work on the film in October 2015 and visited Los Angeles as a part of the team's pre-production work. In late November 2015, Rajinikanth also travelled to Los Angeles to meet the film's producers and complete costume trials and initial motion capture technology work for the venture. After further negotiations with actors including Hrithik Roshan and Neil Nitin Mukesh, the makers signed on Akshay Kumar to portray the role in which Schwarzenegger was initially considered. A press release coinciding with the start of the film's shoot, also revealed that Resul Pookutty would handle sound designing, Legacy Effects would take care of animatronics work and that Mary E. Vogt would design special costumes. Stunt choreographer Kenny Bates and visual effects specialists John Hughes and Walt Jones were also signed to work on the film.
