John Mahendran

John Mahendran
Other namesJohn Roshan[1]
OccupationDirector
Years active2002 - present
ParentMahendran

John Mahendran, credited as John, is an Indian film director and screenwriter who has worked on Tamil and Telugu and language films. John is the son of noted Tamil film maker Mahendran.

Career

Reports in July 1997 suggested that John was set to direct a film under Mani Ratnam's production house with Manoj Bharathiraja in the lead role, though the project failed to materialize.[1] John then made his directorial debut with the Telugu romantic drama, Premichedi Endukamma (1999)[2] and also directed Neetho (2002) starring newcomers Prakash Kovelamudi and Mahek Chahal, though the film performed poorly at the box office.[3][4] He later adapted and remade the latter film in Tamil as Sachein (2005) with Vijay, Genelia D'Souza and Bipasha Basu in the lead roles.[5] John later worked on the independent Tamil film Aanivaer (2006), which told the story of a doctor caught up in the Sri Lankan civil war. The film won positive reviews and had a limited release across regions with Tamil diaspora.[6] John subsequently began work and finished the first schedule for Urumi, which starred Sibiraj and Aparna Pillai, but the film was later shelved. He then began pre-production on a film starring Vishal and also a project titled Saravedi, starring Jeevan but both the projects never materialized.[7]

John began work on a political comedy film titled Thallaippu Seidhigal in 2011 with Nakul and Aindrita Ray in the lead, and although the team had a photoshoot and later went through a title change, with a new title of Sadugudu, the project was shelved. In the early 2010s, John has worked on the script of Settai (2013) by helping director Kannan re-work the script of Hindi film Delhi Belly and on writing dialogues for Ambikapathy, the dubbed Tamil version of Raanjhanaa (2013).[8] Subsequently he worked as a writer on film including Kaashmora (2016) and Motta Siva Ketta Siva (2017), while working as a screenplay and dialogue writing teacher at the Bofta Film Institute based in Chennai.

In 2022, he wrote for the Tamil movie Visithiran, the official remake of Malayalam movie Joseph directed by M. Padmakumar.[9]

Filmography

Director

Year Film Language Notes
1999Preminchedi EndukammaTelugucredited as John
2002NeethoTelugu
2005SacheinTamil
2007AanivaerTamil

Actor

Year Film Role
2022RaangiKrishnamurthy
2023RaththamInspector Vimal Raj

Writer

  • All films are in Tamil including dubs. He has translated other language films into Tamil.
Year Film Screenplay Dialogues Notes
2013SettaiYesYes
AmbikapathyNoTranslated
Athiradi VettaiNoTranslated
2017Motta Shiva Ketta ShivaNoYes
2018KashmoraNoYes
2020DarbarNoYes
2021KabadadaariNoYes
2022VisithiranNoYes
Vikrant RonaNoTranslated
2023 Kondraal PaavamNo Yes
AgentNoTranslated
2025Baby and BabyNoNoStory discussion

References