Sanyukta Iyer (MUMBAI MIRROR; June 14, 2018)

Fresh off the box-office success of her last production, the Shashanka Ghosh-directed Veere Di Wedding featuring Kareena Kapoor, Sonam Kapoor, Swara Bhasker and Shikha Talsania, Ekta Kapoor recently announced a sequel. Now, Mirror has learnt that the filmmaker has also simultaneously kicked off work on another sequel.

Three years after the Shraddha Kapoor and Sidharth Malhotra romance-action-drama Ek Villain, Ekta has commissioned a bunch of writers to work on a new romance-drama which will be a follow-up to the earlier film. This year, she is set to co-produce the upcoming projects of four leading directors — Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari, Imtiaz Ali, Alankrita Shrivastava and Shree Narayan Singh — with Ashwiny’s drama being the first to roll. The fifth film will be the second instalment in the Ek Villain franchise.

The original, directed by Mohit Suri, had featured Riteish Deshmukh as the villain and Prachi Desai and Kamaal R Khan in special appearances. The sequel will comprise of an entirely new cast with the exception of Sidharth who is expected to return as the leading man, and will be helmed by a new director. While the original had been loosely based on the Korean action-thriller I Saw The Devil, which released in 2010, the second film is an original script.

“Work on Ek Villain 2 has just kicked off. The premise of the original is great for a potential franchise,” a source from Balaji Motion Pictures informed Mirror, adding that Ekta is very fond of Sidharth and the two frequently discuss films.

In an interview to Mirror (May 7) Ekta had said that Shotgun Shaadi with Sidharth, set in a small town in North India, is her most massy film yet. “It’s my Grease Lightning (the 1977 American biographical film) in today’s times with Sid,” she had said.