Shah Rukh Khan's Red Chillies Entertainment is expanding their association with Netflix India. After announcing a web-series called The Bard of Blood, based on Bilal Siddiqi's high-octane political espionage thriller novel of the same name, the production house is now gearing up to create more content for the International streaming giant.
Peepingmoon.com has exclusively learned that Red Chillies Entertainment will now be producing a period feature film for Netflix. The film in question is apparently based on author S Hussain Zaidi's unpublished book, Class of 83. Set in the 80s era, the film is said to be about an IPS Officer who trains a bunch of officers who all became encounter specialists.
Shah Rukh Khan
Filmmaker Atul Sabharwal who has earlier directed Arjun Kapoor's Aurangzeb and a crime Television series Powder has come on board to helm this Netflix cop-drama that goes on floors in April/May. Scheduled to be shot majorly in Leh and Rajasthan, the yet-untitled film is likely to have some new young faces playing the leads.
Emraan Hashmi stars in The Bard of Blood produced by Shah Rukh Khan
At the time when all the major Bollywood production houses are building a separate division to develop contents for the web, Shah Rukh's production house seems no different. To create groundbreaking content out of India, Red Chillies and Netflix, our sources say, are currently working on multiple web-shows and originals as part of their exclusive contract. Besides Bard of Blood and Class of 83, Red Chillies is apparently also making a big-budget series on Operation Khukri that will be co-produced by Sunir Khetrapal of Azure Entertainment.
Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, Shah Rukh Khan and Bilal Siddiqi
Speaking about the future of web contents, SRK had recently said, "Netflix and all other platforms are here to stay. It gives an opportunity to a lot of youngsters who didn’t know where to take their small films. So my deal with Netflix CEO Reed Hastings and chief content officer Ted Sarandos is not just on paper. I’ll try and make stuff for you for which I can’t find a theatre and I am non-self-obsessed to know that certain films don’t need to be in the theatre. Theatres will also change. It will perhaps be more like Broadway where movies will play for six months."