With two huge
successes including quirky comedy, Shubh Mangal Saavdhan and India's official
entry to the Oscars, Newton, both in 2017, filmmaker Aanand L
Rai has solidified his reputation for consolidating entertainment and content
in his craft. After presenting small town tales of romances under his banner,
Colour Yellow Productions, the cinephile is exploring an array of genres in 2018.
With a line-up of films that have made headlines
before going on floors, this year looks exciting and action packed for his
production house. The first movie of the year to hit the big screen on the 12th
of January, under his home banner, Mukkabaaz, has been helmed by Anurag Kashyap
and is a love story of a boxer in a small town in Uttar Pradesh.
Drawing a huge buzz, Rai has partnered with Shah
Rukh Khan for one of the most highly anticipated films of the year, Zero, that
broke the internet by releasing its teaser at the beginning of the year. The filmmaker is all set to creatively
partner with Kashyap again with a film titled Manmarziyan. Believer of stories
that come from remote small towns, Rai will be releasing director, Rahul
Shanklya’s, Nimmo, a small film with a big heart. Also in the pipeline is a
sequel of hit 2016 film, titled, Happy Bhag Jayegi Returns, followed
by a Sonakshi Sinha-starrer comedy helmed by Mudassar Aziz.
Rai will be joining hands with director Navdeep
Singh for a thriller, with Saif Ali Khan essaying the role of a bounty hunter
in the 18th century. The filmmaker will be pairing with
Newton director, Amit Masurkar for the second time, for a film that’s touted to
get on floors this year. An addition to this line up, is a story from Shubh
Mangal Saavdhan’s writer Hitesh Kewalya and an interesting drama, Heer written
by Manmarziyan’s writer, Kanika Dhillon.
Talking about his collaborations, Rai says, “2017 proved to be a successful year with entertaining
and content driven films doing well at the box office and 2018
looks equally promising with new collaborations. While we have been associated
with family entertainers, we also want to present a gamut of genres to the
audience. The process of scripting, casting, scouting for locations and putting
together the entire project is very exciting and the team is ready and excited
to start working with these immensely talented filmmakers.”
