Ronnie Screwvala, the Indian producer, is all set to collaborate with filmmaker Rensil D’Silva for a multi-season espionage thriller series titled Panthers.
Screwvala took to Twitter on Friday to announce the project.
The series will explore the India-Pakistan spy games of the late 1960s and early 70s. The 45 minute-episodic thriller follows the exploits of RAW agents. According to the press release, a highlight of the series is the conspiracy surrounding the hijack of an airplane piloted by Rajiv Gandhi, son of then Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, in 1971. It also shows several other RAW missions.
Talking about the upcoming series, Screwvala said in a statement, “Panthers is the story of India’s burgeoning spy agency against a politically volatile setting. It is as eye-opening as it is gripping and boasts of the right balance of realism and entertainment.”
“The nation is embracing true stories like never before. All the covert operations mentioned in Panthers have taken place in real life. This series is a tribute to the daring feats of the RAW agency before it ascended to legendary status,” D’Silva said in a statement.
The series is co-produced by Premnath Rajagopalan of Blue Monkey Films. This is the third time Screwvala’s RSVP Movies and Blue Monkey are collaborating after A Thursday and the biopic Dhyanchand.
Panthers will commence production in the first quarter of 2022. An announcement regarding the cast and crew members is expected soon.
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Meanwhile, D’Silva’s upcoming thriller film Dial 100, starring Manoj Bajpayee, Neena Gupta, and Sakshi Tanwar, is releasing on August 6 on the OTT platform ZEE5. It is produced by Sony Pictures Films India and Alchemy Films.
RSVP, on the other hand, is also producing a web series based on the 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy. The series, which is being directed by Richie Mehta, is based on Dominique Lapierre and Javier Moro’s 1997 book, Five Past Midnight in Bhopal: The Epic Story of the World’s Deadliest Industrial Disaster.