Nana Patekar returns to films in ‘Welcome’ series
Anil Kapoor, John Abraham to star with Patekar in the franchise
John Abraham, Anil Kapoor, Paresh Rawal and Nana Patekar are set to star in the third and fourth installments of ‘Welcome’ franchise and the makers have already started working on the projects.
The 2007 comedy film ‘Welcome’, directed by Anees Bazmee and produced by Firoz A Nadiadwala had Akshay Kumar, Katrina Kaif, Feroz Khan, Kapoor, Patekar, Rawal and Mallika Sherawat. The film was a blockbuster.
The makers came with ‘Welcome Back’ in 2015 with Abraham. The sequel saw Kapoor and Patekar reprising their roles of underworld dons — Majnu and Uday.
“We are planning to do ‘Welcome 3’ and ‘Welcome 4’ back-to-back. We will start shooting soon. The actors will remain same — John, Anil, Nana, Paresh bhai. The third one will be directed by Ahmed Khan (the first two were helmed by Bazmee),” source close to the makers said.
The producers are planning to release the third part in 2020 and the fourth one in 2021.
“This time we will have lot of action. We will have fun and stylised action, like how it was in ‘Mission Impossible’ series. So, there will be laughter and action both. First time we will incorporate the action thing in ‘Welcome’ series,” the source added.
Shooting for the third instalment will commence this year abroad.
“The moment ‘Welcome 3’ will get over in two month’s time we will start ‘Welcome 4’. It will be the first Indian franchise to have a movies back-to-back. We had planned this four-five months ago.”
Patekar was recently dropped from ‘Housefull 4’ following the #MeToo allegations levelled against him by Tanushree Dutta, a Bollywood actress and former Miss India. Dutta claims Patekar harassed her on the sets of a film in 2008. Dutta had made the same allegations in 2008 and Patekar had denied them at the time.