It's Thriller Time

Every hurdle is an opportunity for Vishal Bhardwaj, as Charlie Chopra and Khufiya-his two back-to-back releases on streaming platforms-show

- Suhani Singh

It’s not how Vishal Bhardwaj envisioned it, but it is what it is. The filmmaker has had two back-to-back releases on streaming—a series, Charlie Chopra (SonyLIV), followed by a feature, Khufiya (Netflix)— which both emerged from the constraints he found himself in. Adapted from Amar Bhushan’s espionage novel Escape to Nowhere, Khufiya was meant to be a theatrical venture, but he was unable to find “male actors” who understood his vision. Bhardwaj made the lead a female and turned to the actor who trusts him blindly—Tabu. “But with female stars, you don’t get enough money to make what was a huge production,” says Bhardwaj. Enter the knight in shining armour in Netflix.

Meanwhile, Charlie Chopra, based on Agatha Christie’s The Sittaford Mystery, was written as a feature, but once again confronted with a fund crunch and needing a star to spearhead the project, Bhardwaj turned to an OTT service only to be told they wanted a series. “There was the risk of losing the option to the book. In record time, I turned it around,” he says. “These platforms are a great boon because you can tell the stories you want to.”

With both adaptations and his acclaimed Shakespeare trilogy— Maqbool, Omkara and