John Abraham’s hands are full with an interesting slate of films. As we revealed last month, the Bollywood action star has scheduled as many as six films for the next two years, including Mohit Suri’s musical, romantic-thriller, Ek Villain Returns, which releases in theatres on the 29th of this month, and Shah Rukh Khan’s most-awaited comeback film, Pathaan, which is expected to bring a tsunami into cinemas during Republic Day weekend 2023. The Satyameva Jayate actor has also planned films with Nikkhil Advani and Abhishek Sharma, and is in talks with Anurag Kashyap to revive the Ayyappanum Koshiyum Hindi remake. And now, we hear there’s one more new project on John's plate.
Peepingmoon.com has exclusively learned that John Abraham will star in Naam Shabana and Special OPS director Shivam Nair’s next tentpole actioner. The yet-untitled film is said to be a fictional high-octane action drama packed with loads of thrilling elements and will see John playing the role of a common man trapped in an uncommon circumstance. John has officially signed the film and has allotted dates between November and January for the shooting. Kabir Singh producer Ashwin Varde is backing this film under his new banner Wakaoo Films, which he launched last year in partnership with Vipul D Shah and Rajesh Bahl. Further details of the project are not known yet.
John will get into this Shivam Nair action film after finishing Dinesh Vijan’s Tehran, which rolls out next month in the UK. The actor will kick off the Arun Gopalan-directed geo-political thriller right after the release of Ek Villain Returns and is expected to wrap it up by October-end. He will follow that with the Shivam Nair film, and then start either Abhishek Sharma or Nikkhil Advani’s next, depending on whose scripts are ready by then. John is also trying to revive the Ayyappanum Koshiyum remake and has initiated talks with Anurag Kashyap to direct it, but that’s at the very initial stage at this moment. Filmmaker Shivam Nair, meanwhile, is gearing up for the premiere of his next Zee5 series, Mukhbir, in August. The show is an adaptation of the late Malay Krishna Dhar’s spy novel, Mission To Kashmir, and stars veteran South Indian actor Prakash Raj, Undekhi fame Harsh Chhaya, and Barkha Sengupta in the lead roles.
Wakaoo Films has an impressive lineup of at least nine projects ranging across varied genres and production scales. The John Abraham film aside, the banner has also signed Akshay Kumar for a comedy film, titled Khel Khel Mein, to be directed by Mudassar Aziz. They are also producing Sonakshi Sinha and Huma Qureshi’s social-comedy, Double XL by Satram Ramani, which tells the journey of two plus-size women as they navigate society’s beauty standards. Filmmakers Amit Rai, Ashish R Mohan, Sanjay Puran Singh Chauhan, and Gautham Vasudev Menon are also directing films for this new banner, but they are all still in the development stage. The Hindi remake of the critically acclaimed Tamil film Rocky, as well as the big screen adaptation of Amish Tripathi's novel Legend of Suheldev: The King Who Saved India, are also in the works.
