By: Mohnish Singh
The Hindi film industry was still trying to get back on its feet after suffering huge losses during the coronavirus-induced lockdown, but fresh restrictions imposed by the state government of Maharashtra, after a sharp increase in the cases of coronavirus, have thwarted its effort to bounce back.
According to reports, several film and television shoots have been cancelled in Mumbai, including song shoots for Ranbir Kapoor’s much-awaited film Brahmastra and Ranveer Singh’s comedy of error Cirkus.
Zahid Shaikh, a member of the Cine Dancers Association, explained to an Indian publication, “About 50 per cent of the workforce was back on sets but the government is asking the producers to avoid the crowd on the set. We are the first to get hit by this rule and as a result, several shoots have been cancelled.”
He went on to add, “There was a Brahmastra song that needed 300 dancers, there was a Rohit Shetty song for Cirkus – one song to be choreographed by Vaibhavi Merchant – and there were quite a few outdoor shootings. Rehearsals of all the songs were done but now the shooting is cancelled. In the case of Brahmastra, first Ranbir Kapoor got Covid so we had to stop the work for 15 days and then Alia Bhatt got infected and now there is a government mandate to not shoot big songs which is really unfortunate.”
Both Brahmastra and Cirkus are expected to enter theatres in 2021. It will be interesting to see if there will be any delay in their theatrical release because of the fresh restrictions. Over the past few days, several films have been postponed as the second wave of coronavirus wreaks havoc in India.
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