It’s the digital season of students! PeepingMoon.com has exclusively learned that Ananya Panday, Karan Johar’s Student of The Year 2 (2019) heroine, is ready to headline Amazon Prime Video’s drama series, Call Me Bae. The actress, who was recently seen in Dharma Productions’ Liger, will play a billionaire fashionista in this show backed by KJo’s digital content arm, Dharmatic Entertainment.
The series stars Ananya in the titular role of Bae, who is disowned by her ultra-rich family owing to a salacious scandal, and for the first time in her life, has to fend for herself. On this journey, she overcomes stereotypes and discovers who she really is. The project will feature an exciting ensemble team of actors besides Ananya and the casting for that is going on in full swing as we report this development.
Collin D’Cunha, who was supposed to direct Janhvi Kapoor and Kartik Aaryan in Dostana 2 for Dharma before the film was shelved last year, will helm this series. Written by Ishita Moitra, Samina Motlekar, and Rohit Nair, Call Me Bae is expected to go on floors towards the end of this year and premiere in late 2023. Ananya will dive into this series after finishing Raaj Shaandilya’s Dream Girl 2 with Ayushmann Khurrana.
This Amazon Prime Video project will mark the Pati, Patni Aur Woh and Khaali Peeli actress’ fourth collaboration with Karan Johar after SOTY 2, Gehraiyaan, and Liger. On the release front, Ananya will next be seen in Arjun Varain Singh’s coming-of ‘digital’ age story of three Mumbai pals, Kho Gaye Hum Kaha, co-starring Siddhant Chaturvedi and Adarsh Gourav.
Besides Ananya, two of Karan Johar’s earlier ‘students’, Sidharth Malhotra and Varun Dhawan, have also graduated and are taking the digital plunge. Sidharth makes his web debut with Rohit Shetty’s cop drama series, Indian Police Force, while Varun is set to star in Raj & DK’s Indian version of the Russo brothers’ global sci-fi thriller, Citadel.
Dharmatic Entertainment is known for backing quality-led digital projects like The Fame Game, Meenakshi Sundareshwar, Guilty and Ajeeb Daastaans among others. The banner is said to be currently working on at least five new projects, out of which four are with Amazon Prime Video. Kannan Iyer’s Aye Watan… Mere Watan, which stars Sara Ali Khan in the role of a young girl who becomes uniquely instrumental in the freedom fight of Indian independence, recently went on floors.
Emraan Hashmi headlines Dharmatic’s recently announced Disney+Hotstar series, Showtime, which follows the off-camera fights and power struggles happening behind the scenes in Bollywood and is scheduled to get off the ground by year-end. The company is also making an unscripted Amazon Prime Original series, India Love Project. The docuseries shares the inspiring love stories of real people from across the country where each episode tells an unusual yet hopeful tale through the eyes of the couples.