At 21, Anupriya Nagar invested all the money she had earned and saved from three years of part-time jobs in the UK into her first film, Hanuman Ansh, despite having no filmmaking experience. A graduate of economics from the University of Bath, she had even got a job in Zurich before returning to India in 2025 and eventually getting involved with the film as a co-producer.

“I feel like age is just a number,” she says. “My only focus was to bring Maharaj ji’s (Neem Karoli Baba) stories to the younger audience, to Gen Z. We get to know about such things through foreigners. I myself got to know about him through a foreigner and, being the youth of India, I was ashamed that I was not getting to know about him through his own story.”

For her, backing Hanuman Ansh was never about financial returns. “This was the risk I was willing to take. I earned this money in the three years that I studied in the UK, doing part-time jobs. When I came across Maharaj ji at a beautiful juncture of my life, I just wanted to get into this project. I didn’t know what I could contribute because I had not done filmmaking, but I was ready to give my heart and soul to it. The project needed some investment at that particular time, so I said, ‘Whatever I have, I’m ready to give you guys.’”

Her family initially worried about the decision. “My father was protective. He said, ‘You don’t know much about filmmaking and you know how the industry is. You’re so young.’ But when I told him I was making a film on a noble saint and narrated the story, he was fine. They’ve been with me through thick and thin. In fact, I think they do more publicity for the film than I do!”

The film’s box office journey has since surprised everyone. After opening on 300 screens and dropping to just 30 on its eighth day, it eventually expanded to over 1,500 screens, and now releasing internationally. It has also touched the Rs. 100 crore figure.

“My box office is people knowing about Maharaj ji,” she says. “But the collections reassure me that people are interested in this kind of content. People are making an effort to get his darshan in theatres.”

The film ends with a promise of a sequel, and Anupriya confirms it will happen, “We are not going to dishearten our viewers. Maharaj ji has given us so much in abundance regarding the box office, so we don’t have a choice but to make this.”

More importantly, she wants the sequel to retain the simplicity of the first film. “Our film was supposed to be made in Rs. 2 crore. If we had made the same film in Rs. 10 crore, it wouldn’t have come out this way. The rawness and simplicity came from the low budget, and we will definitely keep that in mind,” Anupriya ends.

Trouble has come knocking before the team of Mirzapur: The Movie can celebrate its strong opening at the box office.

Rajasthan-based folk artiste Rapperiya Baalam is preparing to send a legal notice to Excel Entertainment over the use of his song Shoorveer, which he claimed has been used without his permission or credit in the Pankaj Tripathi, Ali Fazal, and Divyenndu-led crime drama.

According to Baalam, Shoorveer appears to have reached Gurmmeet Singh’s directorial feature through the distributor and the broader rights chain. “They have used the song through the distributor, the distribution rights and registrar, and True Music/Virtual Planet. But permission is [a crucial] thing. Nobody came to ask me. My voice and song have been used, and there is no credit. We already emailed Excel, we’ll send a legal notice as well,” he told mid-day.

The artiste’s larger concern is the manner in which Shoorveer — created originally by him along with Rajneesh Jaipuri and Honey Trouper — has been used on Divyenndu’s character Munna in Mirzapur: The Movie. “Shoorveer is a song about Maharana Pratap Singh’s valour, history, and the emotions attached to that legacy. Now you are using it in a situation involving Munna Bhaiyya. I have a major problem with that. To see it get used like this hurts me and I want it taken down from the film,” he asserted.

Baalam, who learnt about the song’s inclusion only when the film released on September 4, underlined that financial settlement is not what he is seeking. “I want my song out of the movie. I am not sitting here saying, ‘Give me money and everything is fine.’ This is not a money issue.”

mid-day reached out to Excel Entertainment, which remained unavailable for comment.

Don’t be surprised if you see another avatar of Ranbir Kapoor minutes before ‘Ramayana: Part 1’ plays out on the big screen. Word is that the teaser of Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s ‘Love & War’ — starring Kapoor, Alia Bhatt, and Vicky Kaushal — will be attached to filmmaker Nitesh Tiwari’s epic.

Initially, the plan was to unveil the romantic drama’s teaser on September 28, coinciding with Kapoor’s birthday. However, that plan has apparently been scrapped, with a different asset drop lined up for the actor’s birthday.

A source close to the development told mid-day, “The September 28 plan is not achievable as the final schedule of ‘Love & War’ got over only in the first week of September. Now, Bhansali sir wants to give the teaser a theatrical launch instead, and ‘Ramayana: Part 1’ provides the perfect platform. It’s one of the biggest films of Indian cinema, and with Ranbir being the lead in both projects, the teaser of ‘Love & War’ can create the impact the makers are looking for.”

While the teaser will be out in November, the trailer is expected to drop in late December before its January 2027 release.

Sure, Sunny Deol’s cop thriller, Antony, promises action galore. But there’s more to director Balaji Ganesh’s film than that. Think a powerful antagonist who is also something of a twinkletoes. mid-day has learnt that Vijay Varma, who plays Deol’s arch rival in Antony, shot a dance number set against the backdrop of a circus.

Apparently, the idea behind the song is to establish his character’s backstory. A source revealed, “The dance track is part of Vijay’s act as a circus artiste. Composed by Salim-Sulaiman, it has been designed by National Award-winning choreographer Vijay Ganguly. The track is a slow reveal; by the end of it, the audience will be shown more about Vijay’s character, where he is from, and his ill-intentions.”

A huge set depicting a circus was constructed in Marol, Andheri East, for the shoot.

With a chunk of the shoot wrapped up, now only a montage song featuring Deol and Jyotika is remaining.

Mumbai: India's content business is entering a new phase as tightening margins across television and streaming push creators and production houses to look beyond traditional commissioning models and build and monetize their own intellectual property, with YouTube emerging as a key destination for premium, long-form originals.

Ekta Kapoor's Balaji Telefilms partnered with YouTube to launch five long-form fiction shows, following the video-sharing platform's collaboration with Aamir Khan on the 2025 film Sitaare Zameen Par. YouTube is also in talks with other production houses for exclusive programming. Producers see the model as a way to experiment with formats while retaining IP and monetization rights, signalling a broader shift in India's content economy. Applause Entertainment and Swastik Productions also launched YouTube-led offerings.

Balaji Telefilms' tieup with YouTube is an early example of this shift. The companies are launching five premium original shows spanning 200 episodes, including Haq Se Season 2, Phir Pyar Ki Yeh Kahani Suno and Kehne Ko Humsafar Hai Season 4, with other projects under development.

The slate will be produced in 4K and made available globally. Kapoor will lead the creative vision and retain ownership of the IP, while YouTube will provide global distribution and monetization pathways through advertising and brand deals.

The partnership comes as producers increasingly look to own and build IPs rather than produce shows purely on a commissioned basis. Kapoor said the move addresses a gap between linear television and premium subscription platforms.

"Television is now catering to the older, immobile family viewer and the subscription-led apps cater to a very niche audience and a very high-paying audience which young Indians maybe sometimes can't afford," Kapoor told ET. Building fiction while owning the IP is the "need of the hour" and gives her greater risk-taking ability in storytelling, she said.

YouTube's growing presence on connected television is central to that opportunity. The platform has more than 75 million adults watching YouTube on connected TV in India, according to YouTube India managing director Gunjan Soni. The scale of connected TV is creating opportunities well beyond a single content category, Soni said.

"Connected TVs themselves have scale. When you already have 75 million-plus adults watching on the larger screen, it is creating opportunities for different players across different verticals," Soni said.

Audiences increasingly want the "best of both worlds" - on-demand viewing and premium content on larger screens, she said. Her comments point to connected TV becoming an increasingly important distribution layer for premium, long-form content.

The shift is also visible among established television personalities. Shekhar Suman, who previously hosted the talk show Movers and Shakers, has taken his new show, Shekhar Tonite, to YouTube.

"YouTube allowed us to speak directly to the audience without being restricted by time slots, programming formulas or the pressure to shape every conversation around conventional ratings," Suman said.

Filmmaker Priyadarshan reunites with actor Akshay Kumar for their upcoming film Haiwaan, also starring Saif Ali Khan, but the genre marks a shift for the duo known for their iconic comedies.

Talking about taking the different route, Priyadarshan says, “Films should not become repetitive. I believe that when you see films like Pad Man, Rustom, and all those films, you see Akshay Kumar is capable of doing other kinds of movies also, not only comedy and those films are successful. I was not planning to do this film with Akshay, but Akshay himself insisted that he has never played a psycho. I thought he was kidding, but he said I'm serious about it,” he says.

Having two actors of such stature together is a casting coup in today’s time and the filmmaker agrees it couldn’t have been possible in the actors of today’s generation.

“Yes, that is true. I have worked with Akshay and Govinda, Ajay Devgn and Akshaye Khanna, but there were never any issues because there were no ego problems between them. They both knew that they have a lead role and they have enough meat for themselves. But the new generation is very insecure. They always want to know what the other person is doing. They don't want to know what they are doing,” he says.

Haiwaan marks Priyadarshan and Akshay’s ninth film together. Ask him about how their equation has evolved over the course of these films, and the filmmaker says, “It is about our trust in each other. He never questions me. He will just come to the shot and ask what you want me to do and just do it. I am also very careful about what I am doing with him. I think this is what has worked for both of us. He has got a blind belief in me, and it gives me the responsibility that I should not let him down.”

The film also becomes poignant for Priyadarshan to break an image as his name has become synonymous to the comedy genre.

“I started my career with serious films like Virasat (1997), after Hera Pheri (2000), this comedy brand came on my head. But at the same time, fortunately, I have been making serious movies too in the South. Something unusual is always attractive, so I thought, this time let me try something different. Haiwaan is not a dark film and there's enough for you to laugh in between too. But it is a very emotional film. I always prefer films for family, so a family can watch Haiwaan together too,” he ends.

The eagle has landed – this was how actor Aahana S Kumra and her batchmates reacted when actor-theatre director Naseeruddin Shah walked onto their film school campus 20 years ago. To them, he was not merely a teacher but a standard-setter.

"For some reasons he always knew if we reached unprepared,” Kumra recounts her college and theatre days. “And you could never prepare enough, because he was always over-prepared as a teacher. His favourite line was ‘There are no bad actors, there are only lazy actors.’”

The teaching phase soon shifted from the classroom to the stage for both mentor and mentee.

In 2010, while Kumra was backstage at a play, “Naseer sir approached me with a George Bernard Shaw script. ‘Take and read this,’ he said. That was the day where I finally started to act for a play and in 2011 I performed for By George, at the NCPA under his direction. And it also earned me painting from him and Ratna (Pathak Shah) maam.”

Kumra says that as his students, they all value his sharp insight into the industry’s calculated realities. “He understands that young actors rarely get second chances,” she explains. “If you say no to a producer, you’re replaced. He knows producers have inflated egos—a lost chance is often lost forever.”

On a lighter note, she shares that he fondly calls her a “feisty cat,” and she shares new actors ask her, ‘Naseer sir ke sath kaise kaam kar sakte hain’ and she reverts, ‘Koi tareeka hain hi nahi unke sath kaam kar paane ka. It’s sheer good luck.”

On Main Vapas Aaunga, she adds, “I cried when saw him on screen no doubt it one of his best. He just loves Imtiaz Ali and calls him a rare director. Sir always enjoys portraying a Sardar character—he understands they speak with such buland awaz and as they age it becomes feeble yet authoritative.”

He told us at an event, “Ahana Kumra is one of my students and now also a good friend. Her career hasn’t gone as well as I’d hoped, but she’s been doing some offbeat films. She’s a girl with gumption, and I definitely feel her day will come. Some find success at 20, others at 30 or 40. Look at Boman Irani and Gajraj Rao. So I keep encouraging her and telling her not to get disheartened. I really believe her time will come.” (Input by Aadrika Sominder)

Actor Babil considers himself a lifelong student of acting, guided by two mentors: filmmaker Shoojit Sircar and acting coach Rachit Singh. On Teacher's Day, the young actor explains the role these two mentors have had in shaping his mindset.

“Shoojit da and I have been trying to work together for quite some time now. Even in that struggle to find the right subject and the right time, he taught me to trust life,” shares the 28-year-old.

In learning to trust the process, Babil also discovered the importance of embracing the journey. “All this while, I was chasing outcomes when I should have been living the struggle itself for what it is, and developing my instinct through it while balancing that with rigorous practice of the craft,” he says.

These lessons, he believes, came from having the right teachers. “The difference between a good and a bad teacher can be whether the student lives their life or merely survives it,” says the actor, who made his debut with Qala (2022) and is now preparing for his foray into Malayalam cinema.

Shoojit Sircar says there was a lot of expectation from Babil since he is the late actor Irrfan’s son. “But it’s wrong. He was just figuring out his way and the world was expecting him to deliver. That’s the worst scenario for anyone. I just tried to help him out of this trap. Whatever course correction he is doing, it’s purely his conviction for his art. He is still a student and we should give him that chance,” he insists, adding that Babil’s biggest strength is “his surety that he wanted to become an actor”.

Speaking about his other pillar of strength, Babil says, “Rachit sir and I have been working intricately on surrender and awareness for six years. His workshops changed my life and perspective, and showed me how to offer my throat to life and be fearless about it. The confidence I have today in my skills as an actor and a human being stems largely from paaji’s workshops and friendship.”

Talking about an important moment with Rachit, Babil shares, “I think one moment that I can say without worrying is from paji’s workshops, especially the first one when I was trying to quit midway desperately afraid of failing and Rachit paji would call me incessantly and do whatever it takes which included literally dragging me out of bed and into the workshop to perform. I would usually perform well on these days but performing well wasn’t what he was trying to instil, it was confrontation with failure.”

He adds, “He was trying to tell me that it doesn’t matter whether I fail or succeed, it matters that I show up. Thank you so much, and I’m forever grateful for you Rachit sir!”

Just because she has been missing from the screen doesn’t mean Bipasha Basu has been lying low. Nearly six years after her OTT debut with the thriller Dangerous (2020), the actor is back to work, and this time with a crime thriller helmed by Hansal Mehta. Sources inform that Basu began shooting for Mehta’s next, titled Barabanki, in Mumbai last month.

Adapted from The Barabanki Narcos: Busting India’s Most Notorious Drug Cartel, written by retired Indian Police Service (IPS) officer Aloke Lal, the crime thriller is set in 1984. It tells the inspiring story of how Lal led a massive opium raid operation in Uttar Pradesh’s Barabanki district.

“The series is a gripping, real-life, first-hand account of the dismantling of powerful drug cartels by an IPS officer and his team,” informs a trade source about the series, which is co-produced by Prabhleen Kaur, known for Made in India: The Titan Story. The series also features Sunny Kaushal and Homebound star Vishal Jethwa.

While it is still unclear who plays which role, we hear the makers will also shine a light on those who assisted Lal — including his trusted staff and a network of informers, like former addicts and small-time peddlers — in his fight against the drug cartels.

Basu, who is returning to the screen after having her baby Devi in 2020, “has a powerful role”. “Bipasha has a strong connection to the protagonist. And she hasn’t worked with Hansal before,” shares the source, adding that the actor immediately gave her nod when Mehta approached her with the story, as he has been on her wish list.

“Bipasha has a certain look in the film which is different from the ones she previously sported in her movies.” And that’s all they will say.

Aloke Lal served for 37 years in public service and retired as a Director General of Police (DGP). Besides dismantling the Barabanki Narcotics Cartel, he led field operations against organised armed bandits operating in the rural belts of Shahjahanpur. He was responsible for overseeing counter-militancy operations in Uttarakhand. He detailed eight major investigations of burglary in his co-authored book, ‘On the Trail of Thugs and Thieves’.

Meghna Gulzar has made a career out of walking into complicated, uncomfortable corners of reality and making visceral cinema of them — be it with her debut movie Filhaal, or her recent works like Talvar, Raazi or Chappak. With her new work Daayra, the upcoming investigative drama headlined by Kareena Kapoor Khan and Prithviraj Sukumaran, she finds herself once again dealing with a story rooted in real incidents and expecting strong reactions in all shapes and forms.

In her first conversation about the film, Gulzar sets the record straight on a question that has inevitably followed Daayra since its posters dropped — is it based on the 2019 Hyderabad gangrape and encounter case and subsequent police encounter? Her answer is unequivocal.

“It is based on true events. It is not a fictional story. But it has been researched and taken from many cases that have happened. It’s not one particular case in one particular town or city. Several incidents like this have occurred across the country and we’ve taken a little bit from everywhere to get a more comprehensive perspective.”

That approach also explains one of the film’s most intriguing creative decisions. Rather than locating Daayra in an identifiable Indian city, Gulzar has created an entirely fictional world for the story to unfold in.

“Apart from that, and because it’s not one particular incident, our entire world where Daayra unfolds is a fictional town in India. So I’m not saying it’s based in Pune or Aurangabad or Nagpur or Bombay or whatever.”

The film, in fact, began much earlier than its eventual production. Gulzar reveals that Junglee Pictures first brought her a 34-page story in 2020. “It grabbed me right at those pages, because it was so compelling and it was also extremely scary. And I could see where I could take the story once I got into writing with my co-writers, Yash and Sima.”

Daayra may draw from incidents that have already happened, but the questions at its heart remain painfully current, particularly at a time when police brutality, encounters and questions around the use of state power continue to provoke fierce public debate. For Gulzar, the way through that minefield was not to make a film that simply takes a position on the police, but one that attempts to understand the people inside the uniform.

“Daayra is basically a line. And what me, everyone on the film, and the story itself tries to explore is there is no right or wrong. It depends on where we are standing, on which side of the line. That defines what our perspective is, right? And so that is actually the fulcrum of what Daayra is about. For me, I think the main thing was showing the human being as well as the police officer. Why does that person make the choices that they make? We decide right or wrong later.”

It is a balancing act Gulzar is particularly conscious of because of the responsibility that comes with making films based on real events. She has been exploring institutions; people and events rooted in reality since Talvar, and says the responsibility begins even before the camera rolls.

“I’ve been doing that since Raazi. So you know that there is a tremendous responsibility that comes your way. Even if there is no uniform, the fact that it is based on true incidents already weighs you down with a sense of responsibility that you cannot be frivolous with it.”

The film has an unexpected cast — Kareena Kapoor Khan and Prithviraj Sukumaran, who were not simply cast for their star value; Gulzar had very specific reasons for wanting each of them.

With Kareena, it was almost a case of perfect timing. Gulzar was looking for someone who could break away from the familiar image of a female police officer in Hindi cinema.

“With Kareena, I think it was a moment of serendipity because I was looking at somebody to play this police officer and yet break the mould of the kind of female police officers we have seen in our film industry. I messaged her and she was like, ‘I was also going to message you that I want to work with you’. That timing was that synchronized.”

Prithviraj, meanwhile, was important for an entirely different reason. Gulzar wanted the casting to be geographically and culturally neutral, in keeping with the fictional setting of the film.

“With Prithvi, what happened was that I knew that I wanted an actor who was not from the Hindi film industry. Because, like I said, this is a film that can happen anywhere in our country. So I don’t want it to be a film about a case that happened in North India or a case that happened in South India.”

She had barely begun the conversation with him when he agreed. “I just told him the story in like 45 minutes and he was like, ‘I’m doing it’. I don’t know how, because I have three films back to back. But I will make time, I will do this’.”

For Gulzar, that early conviction from her actors became a responsibility of its own. “When you start off, when your first step is with so much conviction, and you know that you have that faith of your actors in you, it becomes your armour. And it also then becomes a big responsibility that you cannot let their belief down. You have to redeem their faith. What I did was that I made Prithvi and Kareena like the yin and yang of the film. So, where Prithvi has this inherent seething scowl, Kareena is doing everything and dismantling people and situations with a smile.” 

For a filmmaker whose films have often been discussed in terms of their box-office prospects, Daayra also arrives at a time when mainstream Hindi cinema is wrestling with what kind of stories can command a theatrical audience. Raazi made over Rs. 150 crore at the box office. Gulzar, however, refuses to accept that making a film like this is uniquely difficult simply because the theatrical landscape has changed.

“It’s hard to make any film. Whether its budget is Rs 20 crore or its budget is Rs 200 crore. It’s never easy to make a film. The challenges may be different from film to film, but a film is never easy just because it has a big budget. That comes with its own problems.”

She points out that filmmakers have always faced changing commercial realities. “You want it to be successful because it is somebody’s money that has gone into it. Nobody sets out to make a failure of a film. Everybody wants their film to be successful. Every film has a challenge, no matter what the budget of the film is.”

And perhaps that is also why she is unwilling to tell an audience what it should take away from Daayra. Asked what she hopes the film achieves once it reaches theatres, Gulzar declines to prescribe a response.

“I never did that on Talvar also, I never did that on Chhapaak also. If you don’t have an opinion on my film, I have failed as a director because it has not touched you. It has not affected you. The worst thing can be indifference. I would rather that you are opinionated about it, whether that opinion is a positive opinion or a negative opinion. At least you are not indifferent to what we created.”