When director Siddharth Anand had called for a two-day schedule break for Pathan on April 12, he had no idea that he wouldn’t be able to call the shots again until late June. The Shah Rukh Khan, Deepika Padukone and John Abraham-starrer was among the many projects whose shoots were disrupted due to the second round of lockdown in mid-April. Now, as production houses have gingerly begun shoots, it is heard that Khan and Padukone will resume work on the spy thriller early next week.

Sources close to the unit reveal that the cast and crew will get tested over the weekend. “It will be a seven-to-10-day schedule that will take place at Yash Raj studio in Andheri, in a bio-bubble. Aditya sir [Chopra, producer] is clear that only those who have been vaccinated can be part of the team. Siddharth has an international schedule pending, but that will happen later. Given the current scenario, they plan to shoot in short stints,” reveals a source. With Maharashtra witnessing cases of Delta plus variant, the state government has instructed production houses to exercise caution while shooting.