It’s father and son film season in Bollywood. Anil Kapoor set the ball rolling by green-lighting Olympian shooter Abhinav Bindra’s biopic with son Harshvardhan. Next, it’s the turn of Aditya Pancholi and son Sooraj. They reportedly share screen space in Remo D’Souza’s much-anticipated Race 3. Buzz is that Aditya continues in his avatar as the villainous mafia Godfather Anza from the film’s 2013 prequel while Sooraj enters as his ‘mysterious’ son in the third installment. However, the Pancholis have not confirmed their participation to Peeping Moon.com.

The franchise is as much known for its swanky cars, exotic foreign locales and foot-tapping music as it is for its outrageously stylish antagonists. The previous Race films had Akshaye Khanna, Katrina Kaif and John Abraham as villains. Sooraj reportedly joins them and father Aditya in Race 3. The big suspense is whether Salman Khan will play a baddie for the first time in his career with this film. The actor, as is his wont, is keeping fans and the media guessing.

Sources say that both, Aditya and Sooraj owe their roles in Race 3 to Salman. The actor has been a real ‘Bhai’ to the Pancholis in their time of distress. He also gave Sooraj his big break by launching him and Suniel Shetty’s daughter Athiya in his home production Hero in 2015. That was also a film in which Aditya and Sooraj starred together with the Sr. Pancholi playing a father figure to Junior.

Director Remo has revealed that pre-production work on Race 3 has begun in Abu Dhabi already and the film will roll by November. He has taken over the franchise from director duo Abbas-Mustan. Producer Ramesh Taurani, an indefatigable optimist, believes that Salman and Jacqueline Fernandez in Race 3, with possibly Siddharth Malhotra and Race franchise perennial favourite Saif Ali Khan, will give him the biggest hit of his life.