Riteish Deshmukh's upcoming Hindi-Marathi bilingual, Shivaji biopic, to go on floors next year

Riteish Deshmukh is all set to collaborate with Marathi filmmaker and National Award winner Ravi Jadhav in his upcoming film based on the Maratha ruler Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj. This will be the actor-director duo’s third film after Balak Palak in 2013 (Deshmukh had produced it) and Banjo in 2016, which was Jadhav’s Bollywood debut film. Speaking to Mumbai Mirror, Deshmukh informed about the film and the recent developments around it. “We have just finished our first draft and after a few revisions, we will get into prep. The film will roll next year,” he says, also mentioning that they have been reading various text books on the ruler — Vedh Mahamanawacha, Shree Raja Shivchatrapati and Shivcharitra  to name a few. [caption id=“attachment_4197457” align=“alignnone” width=“825”]  A statue of Chhatrapati Shivaji (left); Riteish Deshmukh (right). Images via Facebook[/caption] He further says, “At the moment, it is a Marathi film but by the time we go on the floors, it may become a Hindi-Marathi bilingual. We will take a call on that later,” reports Mirror. Deshmukh has been backing some aspiring projects in Marathi cinema that have won several accolades — both critically as well as commercially. While his 2014 film Yellow won a National Award, Lai Bhaari, released the same year, was a major box-office hit. His (production house’s) most recently released Marathi crime thriller, Faster Fene is also doing a decent business. Talking about his stint as a producer for Marathi films, Deshmukh says, “I’m glad that the first few films we have produced have been in different genres and were appreciated by the audience. When you work with low budgets, one has no option but to work on content and within the space offered, scale up one’s product,” adds the Mirror report.