Mollywood director R.S. Vimal had originally announced a film titled Karnan with Prithviraj Sukumaran back in 2017 but after the first producer backed out, the movie revamped as Mahavir Karna with Vikram as the lead and Pooja Entertainment as the production banner. Even A.R. Rahman was brought on-board to compose music.

But the movie faced several production delays and cast, crew changes and recently Pooja Entertainment unveiled a title teaser for the film but without any mention of the lead actor Vikram. Despite the teaser carrying a shot of Vikram's hand (the one that shoots the arrow) in the video reports were rampant that the 'Chiyaan' actor has opted out of Mahavir Karna.

Presenting to you a never seen before visual extravaganza - #SuryaputraMahavirKarna! The story of an unsung warrior Karna from Mahabharata.
Releasing in #Hindi #Tamil #Telugu #Kannada #Malayalam@vashubhagnani @jackkybhagnani @honeybhagnani #RSVimal @DrKumarVishwas @poojafilms pic.twitter.com/ERpIinKMsB

— Pooja Entertainment (@poojafilms) February 23, 2021

Following this, R.S. Vimal stated in the Malayalam media that Vikram has 'not walked out of the movie' whereas Hindi movie blogs reported of Pooja Entertainment looking for a Bollywood star to replace Vikram. It remains unclear which of these is true and Vikram's side seems as much in the dark as us.

It is worth mentioning here that the newly released Suryaputra Mahavir Karna video only credits R.S. Vimal as director and Kumar Vishwas for dialogues; Vikram's Mahavir Karna had him as Karnan, Suresh Gopi as Duryodhana, B. Jeyamohan for Tamil and Malayalam dialogues, K.K. Senthil Kumar for cinematography and Sreekar Prasad for edits.