Digital platform Netflix is being tapped by marquee film production houses now. Shah Rukh Khan’s Red Chillies Entertainment had earlier announced Bard Of Blood, a web-series based on Bilal Siddiqi’s book of the same title.
Now Red Chillies has lined up a Netflix Originals film based on former journalist and noted crime-fiction writer Syed Hussain Zaidi’s unpublished book, Class of 83. The Netflix Original will be helmed by director Atul Sabharwal.
A source associated with the project said: “Red Chillies is producing a film on Class of 83 for Netflix. I don’t know about the casting, but the project is in an advanced stage. The director is locked down. Atul Sabharwal is helming it.”
When contacted, Sabharwal said, “I cannot say anything now. I don’t even know whether I’ll be directing it.”
Asked whether he had been offered the Netflix film, Sabharwal refused to comment. Sabharwal has previously directed Aurangzeb (2013) and the TV show, Powder.
The book Class of 83 is set in the 1980s when the Mumbai police initiated a programme to build a special team of ‘encounter’ specialists and shooters to fight the threat posed by the underworld and its gangs.
Earlier, Netflix had announced eight new Original films with producers who included actresses Priyanka Chopra, Anushka Sharma and Madhuri Dixit Nene.
Chopra’s Marathi film Fireband has been released on the platform while Dixit’s Marathi film 15th August and Sharma’s Hindi horror feature Bulbul are lined up for release.