Ahmed Khan on working with the actor and taking the Baaghi series forward; informs Heropanti 2 will kick off before year-end
Avinash Lohana (MUMBAI MIRROR; March 2, 2020)

After Baaghi 2 and the upcoming third instalment of the action franchise releasing on March 6, the trio of Tiger Shroff, director Ahmed Khan and producer Sajid Nadiadwala are collaborating for the third time on the recently-announced Heropanti 2. The 30-year-old actor had made his Bollywood debut with the romantic action-comedy, but his director is quick to inform that Part 2 will see a completely different Tiger. “We aren’t taking his original character from Heropanti forward. From the poster you must have realised that his look will be sleek and sharp. We are still working on the script and his character and while there will be a lot of action in this one too, it will be very different from the one in the Baaghi series,” says Ahmed who starts prep by the month-end.

They will be shooting Heropanti 2 in four countries. The film will go on the floors before the year-end. “I believe in making a hero look like a hero, and Tiger is the only actor from the younger lot who can spearhead a franchise. We are all very excited for it,” exults the filmmaker who is currently in the midst of promotions for Baaghi 3.

The earlier franchise is still memorable for its climax where Tiger stormed antagonist Raghav Shetty’s (played by Sudheer Babu) building, single-handedly fighting his men on each floor before the final face-off. “In Part 2, we went from vertical to horizontal, with Tiger going deep into the jungle to combat with Manoj Bajpayee’s DIG Ajay Shergill. Every director should visualise his film like Sanjay Leela Bhansali does for his sets and songs and Rohit Shetty for his car sequences. For Baaghi 3, we started conceptualising the action sequences first, to determine the scale of the film. And since we wanted it really big, we decided to pitch Ronnie against a nation this time,” says the director.

Not wanting to shoot against a green screen, he visited several countries before zeroing on Serbia where they recreated Syria on a set spread across 2.5 kilometres. “We first went to Istanbul, but they had some restrictions on the use of tanks and helicopters, on blasts as well and we have some 430 of them in the film,” he recounts.

Next, they went to Georgia where they did a mock shoot. “But I wanted the blasts to go up to 100-120 feet which wasn’t possible,” narrates Ahmed, saying at the Serbian army base, they made him stand in front of the T72s, Soviet battle tanks. “I was so impressed that I immediately decided we’d shoot there.”

Prod him for details on the action and the director recollects a risky scene with Tiger standing in front of a car which explodes. “He was 30 feet away and we had placed the camera in a way that it would seem like Tiger was closer to the car. Even as the car blew up, the wind turned in his direction bringing with it a big thermocol fireball that raced directly towards him. Thankfully, my assistant caught Tiger and ran with him, otherwise it would have definitely hit him. Despite the close shave, Tiger believed in my vision and was very co-operative throughout,” says a gratified Ahmed.

In 2018, they had announced Baaghi 3, even before the second part opened in the theatres. So, is Baaghi 4 also in the works? “I would love for it to happen, but we will take a short gap between this film and the next this time,” he smiles.

The choreographer-turned-director had featured as a child artiste in Shekhar Kapur’s Mr India (circled in the picture, left). What does he think of the reboot, as announced by Ali Abbas Zafar? “I can still play the child actor, there is no major change in me apart from the fact that I have grown by three inches,” he jokes, adding it should be made. “It’s an iconic film, but I don’t know how they will get the kids and the feel right,” he asserts, revealing that five years after the Sunny Leone starrer Ek Paheli Leela, he is getting back to production with two action films, one with Zee and the other with T-Series. “One of them will be directed by Kapil, action director Tinnu Verma’s son.”