Vaani Kapoor to Headline YRF Entertainment’s Streaming Series ‘Mandala Murders’ (EXCLUSIVE)
Leading Indian studio Yash Raj Films’ streaming production arm YRF Entertainment has revealed its second show.
Titled “Mandala Murders,” the multi-season series is billed as a gritty crime thriller. It is created and will be directed by Gopi Puthran (“Mardaani 2”). Manan Rawat, who has worked on several films as an associate director for the studio, will serve as co-director.
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Vaani Kapoor, who won critical acclaim playing a transgender character in film “Chandigarh Kare Aashiqui,” will lead the series, her debut in the streaming space, alongside Vaibhav Raj Gupta (SonyLIV series “Gullak”). Surveen Chawla (Netflix series “Decoupled”) and Jameel Khan (“Gullak”) have also been cast in prominent roles in “Mandala Murders.”
Puthran will commence principal photography this week across the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh in a month-long schedule, taking in the cities of Prayagraj, Lucknow and Varanasi, before heading to Delhi and Mumbai. The series boasts a large budget and will be shot on a grand scale, Variety understands.
The first production from YRF Entertainment is “The Railway Men,” a tribute to the unsung heroes of the 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy. It stars R. Madhavan (“Rocketry: The Nambi Effect”), Kay Kay Menon (Prime Video’s “Farzi”), Divyendu Sharma (Prime Video’s “Mirzapur”) and Babil Khan (Netflix’s “Qala”). The protagonists of “The Railway Men” are workers at the Bhopal railway station who saved thousands of lives. The show is nearly ready.
“We are going to have more such stories coming out – a couple of shows in the next three years. We are in development on a lot of stuff. And we’re going to pick and choose what we put into production. But you’re going to see more momentum from us on the digital story side,” Yash Raj Films CEO Akshaye Widhani told Variety.
The studio is adopting a licensing model where it will greenlight and produce shows and then look for streaming partners.
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