During her initial days, Bollywood actress Vidya Balan was roped in as the female lead for a Malayalam film Chakram, opposite Mohanlal, and was subsequently signed on for twelve other Malayalam language films. However, due to production snags, Chakram was shelved. The postponement of a film starring Mohanlal was an unheard of occurrence in Malayalam cinema and film producers blamed her for bringing "bad luck" to the project; labelled her as a "jinx" and replaced her in rest of the films.