Filmmaker Richie Mehta, best known for creating and directing Netflix’s smash hit series, Delhi Crime, has started working on his next. Peepingmoon.com has exclusively learned that Mehta is next making a big-scale crime drama series about elephant poaching in India. The project has tentatively been titled Poacher Diaries and stars Malayalam actor Roshan Mathew and Dibyendu Bhattacharya in the lead roles. It’s currently being filmed in Delhi, and will premiere on a major OTT platform early next year.
"This is Richie Mehta’s long-cherished project, which is finally taking off after several unsuccessful attempts in the past. It uncovers the devastating effects of illegal poaching activities, the overall effect on the Asian elephant population, and how it relates to organized crime syndicates. Through a spine-tingling crime story set in the jungles of Kerala, the show highlights the major lacuna in the enforcement of wildlife protection laws in India and how, despite stringent measures, elephant poaching continues unabated because of cover-ups by the very people who are supposed to protect wildlife, "a source close to the filmmaker told us, adding that Mehta’s remarkable in-depth research on the issue makes the show a gold standard for wildlife-crime dramas.
Alan McAlex, who has produced a string of esteemed commercial and arthouse films such as Killa, Nil Battey Sannata, Gurgaon, and Once Again, among others, is said to be line-producing this show under his banner, Suitable Pictures LLP. Alan and Richie Mehta are independently developing this project, and no broadcasting partner has yet come on board. The show went on floors early this year and was majorly shot in the jungles of Kerala. Roshan Mathew and Dibyendu Bhattacharya aside, the series also features Hemant Rathi, Nikhil Pandey, and Saavi Kundra in pivotal roles.
Richie Mehta is expected to start yet another web series soon after finishing Poacher Diaries’ post-production. He is assigned to create and direct a massive-scale show on the 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy for Ronnie Screwvala’s banner, RSVP Movies. Adapted from Dominique Lapierre and Javier Moro’s 1997 book, Five Past Midnight in Bhopal: The Epic Story of the World’s Deadliest Industrial Disaster, the show details the disaster in 1984, when a cloud of toxic gas escaped from an American pesticide plant in the central Indian city of Bhopal and killed and injured thousands of people. Mehta is also attached as an executive producer on Netflix's second season of Delhi Crime, which is expected to premiere in the second half of this year.
