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Rajkummar Rao, formerly Raj Kumar, is an Ftii graduate who made his break into Bollywood with a prominent character in Dibakar Banerjee’s 2010 film “LSD: Love, Sex aur Dhokha.” Since then, Rajkummar Rao’s career has curved upwards only – both poetically and politically, or to put it in other words, both commercially and aesthetically. He, of course, had been initially received by the audience as an actor who stars in the so-called urbane niche films, but Rao’s later choice of comedy-dramas established him in the popular discourse.

This discourse in Bollywood is currently trying to make itself free from the aesthetic and political remnants left by the popular cinema of the last few decades, especially the post-neoliberal Shah Rukh Khan’s romantic era. I won’t say radically but, somewhat fundamentally, the new comedy-dramas/black or dark comedies/pulp thrillers emerging from Bollywood are shifting popular film’s track...

Bollywood heist comedy “Crew,” starring Kareena Kapoor Khan, Tabu and Kriti Sanon, is a hit and producers Ektaa R Kapoor and Rhea Kapoor are looking at a sequel.

Directed by Rajesh A Krishnan (“Lootcase”) and written by hit “Veere Di Wedding” duo Nidhi Mehra and Mehul Suri, the film is produced by Balaji Motion Pictures and Anil Kapoor Films & Communication Network. It follows three flight attendants with a failing airline who get involved in gold smuggling to a fictitious Middle Eastern country in an operation that’ll save them and their unpaid colleagues financially. The cast also includes Trupti Khamkar (Sundance short “Nocturnal Burger”), Diljit Dosanjh (Netflix film “Amar Singh Chamkila”), Kapil Sharma (Busan title “Zwigato”), Rajesh Sharma (“NH6”), Saswata Chatterjee (“Kahaani”) and Kulbhushan Kharbanda (“Mirzapur”).

“Crew” released over the Easter weekend and, with an opening day worldwide gross of $2.5 million, became one of the highest female-led openers in the history of Hindi-language cinema.

Indian content queen Ektaa R Kapoor’s Balaji Telefilms, which is in robust financial health, has revealed a strong upcoming slate.

On the film front, Balaji recently boarded director Nanda Kishore’s Malayalam and Telugu-language magnum opus “Vrushabha,” starring Mohanlal, and also in the works are Hansal Mehta’s “The Buckingham Murders,” starring Kareena Kapoor, Rajesh Krishnan’s “The Crew,” starring Kapoor, Tabu and Kriti Sanon and Karan Boolani’s “Thank You for Coming,” starring Bhumi Pednekar. Sequels to Dibakar Banerjee’s groundbreaking “LSD: Love, Sex Aur Dhokha” and Raaj Shaandilyaa’s “Dream Girl,” starring Ayushmann Khurrana and Ananya Pandey are also in the making.

On the television and streaming front, the details of the shows will be eventually released by the respective platforms, but broadly, they include an untitled historical for a leading broadcast channel, a pre-medieval era show for a global streamer, a show based on a real...

British-Indian actor Arjun Mathur, 2020 International Emmy best actor nominee for Amazon Prime Video India series “Made In Heaven,” has signed with the U.K.’s United Agents for international representation.

Mathur has wrapped the U.K. schedule of Indian dark comedy “Lord Curzon Ki Haveli” and is in the process of completing season 2 of “Made in Heaven.” After that he will shift focus to his international career, where his credits include acclaimed Channel 4 series “Indian Summers.”

“They [United Agents] sat me down and spoke to me the other day, and they were like, ‘We need you to not take some work in India for some time, and we understand how that can make you insecure, and it might be hard financially.'” Mathur tells Variety. “I guess that’s what it takes, a bit of time really needs to be invested to bear the fruit. So I might do that post ‘Made in Heaven.