The maker of Akshay Kumar's digital debut The End, among Amazon India's biggest projects, reveals series deferred by seven months
Mohar Basu (MID-DAY; July 31, 2020)

In March 2019, Akshay Kumar had announced his foray into the digital world with the Amazon Prime Video action thriller, The End. At the event — which also saw the superstar setting himself on fire as part of the stunts planned for the evening — Jennifer Salke, head, Amazon Studios, had expressed her excitement about the series as she stated, "The scale at which The End is being conceived is enormous. The storyline and the action sequences have been brilliantly crafted."

The series, one of the biggest projects for the streaming giant's Indian arm, was to go on floors in 2020. However, with the pandemic playing spoilsport, the shoot of the ambitious venture has been deferred by seven months. "The show was to roll in December tentatively, with Akshay joining us in January 2021. But, it has been four months [into the Coronavirus lockdown], and it will be a few more months before normalcy is restored. Akshay, too, has other commitments. So, we are hoping to get into production by the second half of 2021," says producer Vikram Malhotra of Abundantia Entertainment.

Malhotra says the team is mindful that the series be mounted on a scale befitting the superstar. "It isn't a project that we, as makers, can tweak and start [shooting] next month. We've used the time to improve the material." While the show was to be filmed in India and key locations abroad, he admits that the venues can only be finalised "after the situation stabilises."

For now, the producer has his eyes on Shakuntala Devi that drops online today. The makers had faced much criticism when they, like director Shoojit Sircar, sought a digital premiere of their film. "The director, actors, writers and other producers unanimously decided that it was best not to hold off the release, given the uncertain times. Vidya [Balan] and I wanted the story to be told to the audience because our material was ready by March."