Akshay Kumar, Neeraj Pandey to work together again for 'Rustom'

Mumbai: Superstar Akshay Kumar and filmmaker Neeraj Pandey, who have worked together in Special 26 and Baby, are coming together again for an upcoming movie Rustom. While their last two outings had Pandey both as a producer and on the director’s chair, Rustom will have Pandey only producing it under his and Shital Bhatia’s banner Friday Filmworks. [caption id=“attachment_2427192” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  File photo of Akshay Kumar. Reuters[/caption] Rustom will mark the directorial debut of Tinu Suresh Desai and will release on 12 August 2016. Akshay, who turns 48 on Wednesday, said he was thrilled to star in the film. “Having worked with Neeraj on two fabulous projects, I am excited to start work on our new film. I am happy that Zee’s Studios is putting its might behind this film along with KriArj Entertainment and Friday Filmworks. “It gives me and the entire team confidence of this launched worldwide using the global might of Zee,” the actor said in a statement.

Thrilled 2 announce Neeraj Pandey & I are collaborating 4 a romantic thriller #Rustom releasing on Aug 12,2016!Hoping 2 be 3rd time lucky :)

— Jolly Mishra - Asli Jolly from Kanpur (@akshaykumar) September 8, 2015

Written by Vipul Rawal, the film is inspired by real life incidents and is being co-produced by Zee Studios and Arjun N Kapoor’s KriArj Entertainment. Pandey said Akshay was the perfect choice for the romantic-thriller. “When Tinu narrated Rustom to us we immediately got hooked to the quality of the narrative and its potential and instantly decided that it was something that we would like to produce. “We also really felt that given the nature of the story, Akshay would be the perfect fit and him agreeing to come on board will definitely give it the canvas it requires,” he said. Pandey will be pen the dialogues of the film and also co-write the screenplay with Vipul Rawal. Nittin Keni, CEO, Zee Studios said, “We are delighted to partner with Akshay Kumar, country’s leading icon, Neeraj Pandey and KriArj Entertainment on ‘Rustom’… With this film which will release on 12 August 2016 all over, we want to entertain our audiences.” First schedule of Rustom will commence by mid-December this year. The film will also feature two actresses. Zee Music has bagged the music rights for the film. PTI