Giriraj to direct natural-horror thriller Avani

Director BM Giriraj is collaborating with producer Uday K Mehta for the movie Avani, which is touted to be a natural-horror thriller. The film's title card also has the tageline ‘

Maneater

returns’ and is likely to go on floors early next year.

The movie, which is inspired by a real life incident, will have several South Indian actors in

lead roles

. The makers are planning to create a tiger, which will play a pivotal role in the movie by using CGI. According to a leading entertainment daily, producer Uday K Mehta feels that since the storyline has universal relevance, the movie can be made in other languages too. Director Giriraj, who is directing a movie in this genre for the first time, has said that after several rounds of discussion the screenplay is now finalized. He plans to do movies on the lines of Hollywood films like

Jaws

and Anaconda. The project will go on floors once producer Uday K Mehta finishes Dhruva Sarja’s new project which will be directed by Nanda Kishore.

Meanwhile, Giriraj is also teaming up with actor and

director Ravichandran

for a new period drama which is set between 1858 to 1866 period. The makers are planning to rope in foreign actors as Britishers and Portuguals were living in that era. Giriraj had said that the movie is based on an incident when priest and Indologist Fedinand Kittel, who is the first person to produce Kannada and English dictionary, during his visit to Karnataka, meets a writer's family who play an important role in preserving the language, culture and heritage of ancient period for the future generation. Ravichandran will be seen as an heir of the writer’s family.