Vicky Kaushal’s ambitious epic ‘The Immortal Ashwatthama’, also starring Sara Ali Khan, seems to have borne the brunt of the COVID-19 pandemic making Bollywood producers cautious about investing tons of money on big-budget features.
According to a report on Bollywood Hungama, Kaushal who was all set to join forces with his Uri director Aditya Dhar and producer Ronnie Screwvala are having second thoughts about making this fantasy film.
Last year, Kaushal -- fresh off the success from Uri: The Surgical Strike -- had revealed a few posters announcing his new project with the same director. But a year down the line, not much progress has reportedly been made on this front.
Official confirmation from the producers’ front is yet to be made, but it’s believed that the team still incurred losses of more than Rs300 million.
“After investing a considerable chunk, Ronnie realised that the final budget of the film was going out of control and it would be difficult to recover the money even in the non Covid times, The film was initially planned to be made in a certain amount of budget, but as the pre-production work kicked off, the budget kept on increasing by the day,” revealed a source to Bollywood Hungama.
The Bollywood industry has been bleeding money for the last two years due to the global pandemic bringing the entertainment scene to a standstill.
But before the pandemic hit, Kaushal was ecstatic about re-uniting with his Uri director and producers.
“Overwhelmed and ecstatic! On the 2nd anniversary of ‘URI-The Surgical Strike’, the team gives you a glimpse into the world of #TheImmortalAshwatthama. Cannot wait to get onto this journey with the dream team of @AdityaDharFilms, @RonnieScrewvala, @RSVPMovies, @soniakanwar22.”
