After blockbuster hits 3 Idiots (2009) and PK (2014), actor Aamir Khan and filmmaker Rajkumar Hirani are set to reunite for the third time after 11 years. The duo is collaborating to make a biopic on Dadasaheb Phalke, the father of Indian cinema. Dadasaheb Phalke award is the highest film honour conferred by the government of India, but his story stands untold in Hindi cinema.
The yet-to-be-titled film will be set against the backdrop of India's independence struggle. The shooting of the biopic is scheduled to begin from October 2025. It will cover the producer-director's journey from scratch and how he went on to birth the largest indigenous film industry in the world.
According to the Aamir Khan's team's statement, the actor will begin the prep after his upcoming film Sitaare Zameen Par's release on June 20. "He will start preparing for his part soon after the release of Sitaare Zameen Par. VFX studios from LA has already created AI designs for the era and period of the film," it read.
The statement further added that the script has been under works since four years - "Rajkumar Hirani with Abhijat Joshi and two other writers Hindukush Bharadwaj and Avishkar Bharadwaj have been working on this script for the last 4 years. Dadasaheb Phalke’s grandson, Chandrashekhar Srikrishna Pusalkar has been supportive of the project and has provided major anecdotes from Dadasaheb Phalke’s life."
Meanwhile, Aamir Khan's Sitaare Zameen Par's trailer was recently released by the makers. The film is the spiritual sequel of his hit film Taare Zameen Par. It is a sports comedy drama, directed by R. S. Prasanna. Also starring Genelia Deshmukh in a pivotal role, it is a remake of Spanish movie Campeones (2018).
During an interaction with one of his fan clubs in China, the actor spoke about the film and his character, and said, "It is the sequel of Taare Zameen Par. Thematically, it is going ten steps ahead. It is about people who are differently abled. It is about love, friendship and life. Taare Zameen Par made you cry but this film will make you laugh. It’s a comedy but the theme is the same. My character, Nikumbh, in Taare Zameen Par was a very sensitive person. In this film my character’s name is Gulshan but his personality is exactly opposite to Nikumbh. He is very rude, politically incorrect and he insults everybody. He fights with his wife, mother. He is a basketball coach and he beats up his senior coach. He is a person with a lot of internal problems."
Who is Dadasaheb Phalke?
The man behind India's first silent movie, Raja Harshchandra, Phalke established Phalke Films Company in 1912. Phalke wrote, directed and produced the feature while his wife Saraswati helped with costume designing and food catering. His eldest son Bhalchandra played an important role. Dadasaheb Phalke went on to make a reported 27 short films, and over 90 full-length movies in his career as a filmmaker of nearly two decades. Some of his other well-known works are Lanka Dahan, Shri Krishna Janma and Satyavan Savitri among others.