Actor Vikram was initially to play one of the lead roles in Manirathnam's 'Ponniyin Selvan'. The film is based on the famous novel with the same name that was written by Kalki. It seems that Vikram had escaped from the shooting spots of his upcoming movie directed by director Vijay. He flew down to Mumbai for meeting Manirathnam and was disappointed to hear that his role has less importance when compared with Vijay and Mahesh Babu. Vikram had no options other than getting out of the project. This made Arya to approach Manirathnam and he picked up the offer voluntarily. The film will be made simultaneously in Tamil and Telugu. It is worth mentioning that Arya has replaced Vikram in Boopathy Pandian's 'Vedi' as well.