On September 11, Peepingmoon.com exclusively revealed that Fardeen Khan who has been out of the spotlight for the majority of the last decade is set to make his acting comeback with Sanjay Gupta's thriller drama, Visfot that also stars Riteish Deshmukh in the lead role. The film was officially announced soon after we broke the news and since then the development of the project has moved at a fast pace. Gupta has now locked the whole cast and crew and is gearing up to begin the filming mid-next month in Mumbai.
We have also learned that The Big Bull director Kookie Gulati will now helm this film that plays on Mumbai's stark contrast between the chawls of Dongri and the high-rises. Bhushan Kumar's T-Series has come on board to co-produce it along with Gupta's White Feature Films. The two are said to be collaborating on three projects which also include a film based on the life of a famous drug dealer. Sunil Nigvekar has been roped in as the art director while Javed Karim is on board for action. If everything goes as planned, the film will go on floors around 16th October.
Visfot has been in the making for the last three years and has gone through many directorial changes. Sources have informed us that the film was first supposed to be directed by Aurangzeb fame Atul Sabharwal, however, things didn't work out with him and the project was put on hold for a long time. The film was then happening with Riteish Deshmukh and Arshad Warsi playing the lead. It was revived very recently when Fardeen Khan came on board with Samit Kakkad attached as the director. However, Kakkad also left and was replaced by Sarthak Dasgupta who recently helmed Zee5 film, 200 — Halla Ho. The filmmaker had also begun the pre-production with his team when he was shown the door for reasons unknown. Now, Kookie Gulati has taken over the film and he's believed to have been appointed after T-Series came on board. Gulati is already directing a thriller starring R Madhvan and Khusali Kumar for the Bhushan Kumar-led company.
Fardeen Khan and Riteish Deshmukh who have earlier worked together in Akshay Kumar's Heyy Babyy (2007) will be seen pitted against each other in Visfot. The film will see Khan playing the role of a taxi driver and an ex-drug dealer while Deshmukh will play a commercial airline pilot. Written by Abbas Dalal and Hussain Dalal, the film is said to be the remake of the 2012 Venezuelan film, Rock, Paper, Scissors that was selected as the Venezuelan entry for the Best Foreign Language Film category at the 85th Oscar Awards.