Rumours of a fall out between Nana Patekar and Prakash Jha can finally be put to rest. Prakash Jha is producing Nana’s second directorial venture after Prahaar.

The film tentatively titled Paanch Pandav is based on the epic Mahabharata.

While Ajay Devgan will play the lead role of Arjuna, Irrfan Khan is Yudhishtira and Vidya Balan is Draupadi in the film. Om Puri has been finalised to play Shakuni and Rehan Khan will play Nakula. Our source says, “Prakash Jha’s production team is hunting for a muscular actor for Bhima’s role and a relatively new actor for Sahadeva’s character. Prakash Jha will start working on Nana’s film after the release of Raajneeti.

Paanch Pandav will go on the floors by the end of this year.”

It was reported earlier that Nana was planning to launch his son Malhar in his next directorial venture based on autism and had approached Deepika Padukone to play the female lead. The source says, “That film has been put on hold for now.”

Nana had recently announced at a film event that Prakash Jha would produce his next directorial venture.

Prakash Jha says, “Whenever Nana decides to direct a film, I will be more than happy to produce it.”

Declining to divulge details, Nana says, “I will talk about the film when I make it.”

Close to a decade and a half after his last directorial effort HU TU TU (Tabu, Nana Patekar, Suneil Shetty), there are talks that acclaimed film maker Gulzar would be returning to wielding the megaphone once again for a film with Vidya Balan being the central protagonist. With decades of experience behind him and some author backed characters that he has lent to veteran actors like Hema Malini, Jaya Bhaduri and Rekha in the past, Gulzar has seemingly set his eyes on Vidya Balan who is pretty much in the same league as far as an actor with a substance is concerned.

Vidya is (obviously) guarded in her tone though while commenting, “At the moment I would only commit to doing the Jessica Lal film. Inshallah, I do hope though that Gulzar saab makes the film with me sooner than later. That will be THE moment for me in 2010 after a beautiful 2009. Beyond that I don’t wish to comment any further on the film.”