LIGHTS, CAMERA, BACK IN ACTION!

AS CINEMAS ACROSS THE COUNTRY OPEN, BOLLYWOOD IS WORKING WITH A VENGEANCE SHOOTING BOTH FOR THEATRICAL AND STREAMING PLATFORMS

- Suhani Singh

Taapsee Pannu is accustomed to having producers jostle for shoot dates. But after becoming a producer herself, she discovered that it wasn’t just hard to rope in desired actors for projects, even the technicians were occupied. “That’s called the OTT boom,” says Pannu. “It is giving opportunities to people who have waited for years and never got their due. It has opened a parallel industry.” It’s evident in the packed roster of Netflix (90 films and series in the pipeline) and Amazon Prime Video (41 in production and over 50 in development).

But it’s not OTT alone that’s contributing to what is one of the most prolific spells in the Hindi entertainment industry. After a year and a half of more lows than highs, Bollywood is back in action. T-Series and Reliance Entertainment recently announced they will invest Rs 1,000 crore to produce a slate of films. Production house RSVP has seven films on floor including two war-based dramas, Tejas and Pippa, for theatrical release. Actors are itching to work, shooting titles envisioned for the big screen with gusto. Salman Khan was in Austria for part three of the popular Tiger franchise; and Shah Rukh Khan and Deepika Padukone were headed to Spain for a song. That is until the Narcotics Control Bureau arrested Khan’s son, Aryan, after a raid on a cruise ship off the Mumbai coast.

“It is the best, best phase for the Indian film fraternity and I feel that the best is yet to come,” says Bellbottom producer Jackky Bhagnani of Pooja Entertainment, one of the first to shoot a film after the first lockdown. He isn’t the only producer working from London. Sajid Nadiadwala flew down Tiger Shroff and Nawazuddin Siddiqui for