Dinesh Vijan’s Maddock Films is setting up a huge lineup of projects for 2022–23. The company, which is known for producing box office hits such as Stree, Bala, Badlapur, and Hindi Medium, among others, has reportedly greenlighted six new projects that will be headlined by Bollywood actors like John Abraham, Shraddha Kapoor, Tabu, Ayushmann Khurrana, Samantha Ruth Prabhu, Vaani Kapoor, and others. The banner is said to have also signed Akshay Kumar for an Air Force drama, which will go into production in the first quarter of next year. However, the most exciting and unique of them all is said to be the one with Shahid Kapoor and Kriti Sanon. Maddock Films is publicising this film as "a unique and the biggest love story coming out of the banner," and today we are going to reveal why this film is billed as such.
"Shahid Kapoor and Kriti Sanon’s film is a robot rom-com. It’s a quirky Indian take on the romance between a man and a machine, something that has been explored many times in Hollywood but is rare in Indian cinema. In this film, Shahid plays a robotics guy, while Kriti will be seen as a robot," a source aware of this project exclusively revealed to Peepingmoon, adding that the story is set in a small town against the backdrop of an Indian cultural tradition. Maddock Films is prioritizing this film as a very special project and has asked the assigned team to leave no stone unturned to make it exactly as envisioned on paper. They have planned to shoot it on a big scale in India and abroad from November this year.
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"The Shahid-Kriti film is more like Ex Machina meets Bahu Hamari Rajinikant. It's a Hollywood concept told in the typical Indian context and promises audiences a unique and enticing experience packed with loads of drama and quirkiness," the source further added. Shahid and Kriti loved what they were offered and are excited to bring this unique love story to screen. The yet-untitled film will be directed by Trapped co-writer Amit Joshi, who has also written screenplays for Santosh Sivan’s yet-unreleased Mumbaiker and Madhur Bhandarkar’s upcoming films, India Lockdown, and Babli Bouncer. Joshi is finally making his directorial debut with this Dinesh Vijan production after his previous project with Ronnie Screwvala, which was supposed to mark his debut as a director, was cancelled in 2020. He was expected to direct Vikrant Massey and Sunny Singh in a bromance story set against the backdrop of four different locations.
The relationships between humans and robots have been explored multiple times in western cinema in films such as Her, Blade Runner, Robot & Frank, Bicentennial Man, The Mad Scientist’s Daughter, and Star Trek: First Contact, among others. However, this will be the first time a Hindi film will focus on this burgeoning relationship between a man and a robot, differentiating this Shahid Kapoor-Kriti Sanon starrer from all other movies at Maddock Films. The only Indian film that has had a robot love story angle was Rajinikanth and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan’s 2010 Tamil blockbuster, Enthiran, but that film was more of a sci-fi action drama than a robot romance. Stay tuned as we bring an exclusive update on one more Shahid Kapoor film coming this weekend.
