Ravi Mohan joins the Lokesh Cinematic Universe with Benz

Ravi Mohan has come aboard Benz, the fourth film in the Lokesh Cinematic Universe, and the signing reads as more than a routine casting note. It lands only weeks after he sat in front of a wall of microphones and told reporters he would not act in or release a film until his divorce was settled. Lokesh Kanagaraj, who co-wrote Benz and whose universe it belongs to, was the one who welcomed him in.

Benz is directed by Bakkiyaraj Kannan, the first film in the franchise that Lokesh has not directed himself, though he shares the writing credit. Raghava Lawrence plays the title role, with Nivin Pauly cast against type as the antagonist, a character named Walter, and Samyuktha also in the lineup. Filming has been underway since May 2025, and the makers have teased the kind of cross-film cameos the universe trades on, including hints of a thread back to Leo. Ravi Mohan enters as one of the leads.

He is a sharp fit for a film like this. His turn as Siddharth Abimanyu in Thani Oruvan remains one of the genre’s most quoted villains, and Peranmai showed a different kind of range, the sort of record that lets him move between content-driven cinema and full-blown commercial fare. Producer Sudhan Sundaram of Passion Studios put it in those terms, calling Ravi Mohan one of the few actors who can bridge unconventional storytelling and mainstream entertainers and still pull audiences to theatres either way.

The bigger line under all of it is that Benz is what brings Ravi Mohan back to a set. He had asked the industry, and the audience that has followed him since 2003, to give him a break while he sorted out the rest of his life. The break, it turns out, comes with him stepping into the most expansive franchise Tamil cinema has going right now. Shooting continues, and more of the cast is expected to be named soon.