Vikram Malhotra’s Abundantia Readies Ambitious Slate
By Naman Ramachandran
LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – Production on the second season of Abhishek Bachchan-starring “Breathe,” for Amazon Prime Video, is underway and is 70% complete at Indian content outfit Abundantia Entertainment. The company is headed by Vikram Malhotra, the former CEO of Viacom 18 Motion Pictures, where he oversaw “Gangs Of Wasseypur,” “Kahaani,” and “Tanu Weds Manu.”
Several other projects that Abundantia had been developing will now shoot in 2019. The company is working with Rajesh Mapuskar, who directed 2016’s Priyanka Chopra-produced “Ventilator,” on a multi-season series adaptation of “The Men Who Killed Gandhi,” based on Manohar Malgonkar’s 1978 novel.
Abundantia is producing a biopic of badminton champion Pullela Gopichand, “The Gopichand Story” with Fox Star Studios India. Actor and former badminton player Sudheer Babu (“Sammohanam”) will play Gopichand.
Army tale, “Rifleman” will star Sushant Singh Rajput (“Kedarnath”). A director is being shortlisted.
A Bollywood remake of 2013 Hollywood film “Begin Again” is a co-production with T-Series. Shashanka Ghosh (“Veere Di Wedding”) is directing. “The creative arc for the adaptation needs to be extremely Indian,” Malhotra told Variety. “I completely fell in love with the take Shashanka had on that.”
In development are: an untitled thriller by veteran editor Aarif Sheikh (“D-Day”); “Runway” based on an incident that took place during the 1971 war between India and Pakistan; and several projects targeted at the youth demographic.
“The End”, a large-scale series being produced by Abundantia for Amazon, starring Akshay Kumar (“Padman”), was announced recently. “We are aspiring to create a global tentpole out of India,” said Malhotra. “The experience we are talking about is cinematic, comparable with the best in the world. At the heart of ‘The End’ is a very strong emotional core. The genre is action/adventure, it has its element of thrill, it will have a blend of science fiction to it.”
