The film, titled "Sabash Naidu" in Tamil and Telugu, decided to take over the directorial duties to avoid delay in the project.
"My director, Rajeev has taken extremely ill. The unfortunate setback occurred when we were on the fourthday of our recce in Los Angeles. He has been diagnosed with a Lyme disease. It is a rare infection prevalent in Europe and North America.This is the reason I am now directing the film," Haasan said in a statement.
"We have put him in one of the best hospitals with one of our executives keeping vigil 24/7."
Haasanis no stranger to direction. He has previouslyhelmedfilms like"Hey Ram","Chachi420" and "Vishwaroopam".
The character Haasanplays in"ShabashKundu"is a spin-off of "Dashavtharam",a film that he directed in 2008.
"This time I moved in as a standby director hoping my friend, Rajeev will recover soon. It seems he will, but not in time to finish this film, which is tightly scheduled to end principle shooting by July-end orthe first week of August," Haasan said.
"I am sure when he is up and about he will have many more films to direct. He has already done 25 films in his career. He'll do 25 more and I'll be in at least 10 of them."
The movie features Haasan and his elder daughter Shruti Haasan in the lead. Haasan's younger daughter Akshara is an assistant director in the film.
The music of the film is being composed by Ilayaraja.
The movie went on floor in the first week of June in LA and will release by the end of this year.
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