Thank goodness for the OTT. If not for that, audiences would have been entirely deprived of any sort of entertainment. However, this won't be the case in the coming month, what with some truly exciting web series and films set to arrive on the small screen. Fortunately, the principle shooting and a major chunk of the post production for these were completed before the second wave became a reality, and as a result now they have been packaged in entirety and are now ready to be unveiled.
These are The Family Man 2, Sherni and Sunflower, all boasting of some of the most prominent names from the industry and promising to bring on entertainment across genres. With Manoj Bajpayee & Samantha Akinneni, Vidya Balan and Sunil Grover leading the charge in these web offerings, there is quite a lot of range for the audiences to enjoy right through the month.
Let's talk about The Family Man. When the first season had arrived in late 2019, the stage was set for Manoj Bajpayee, 'the family man', to return with his escapades as an undercover spy. Even as his wife Priyamani and the kids wondered that what made him this boring man of the house, his true colors were seen on the field when he was with his partners-on-the-ground, Sharib Hashmi, Shreya Dhanwanthary and Gul Panag. With a rollicking roller coaster ride that it offered, this Raj & DK creation was destined to step into the second season.
Work began pronto on taking forward this franchise on Amazon Prime and writer-director Suparn Verma was brought on board as well. Moreover, added star value came in the form of Samantha Akkineni who is now seeing her much belated debut in the world of Hindi films/web series (though she did a cameo in Prateik Babbar and Amy Jackson starrer Ekk Deewana Tha back in 2012). She too was waiting for something remarkable to come her way and this is now happening with The Family Man 2. The web series arrives this Friday and is looking exciting.
Talking about star power, there would be a lot of that on display this month with Vidya Balan appearing on OTT yet again 11 months after Shakuntala Devi. This time around it is Sherni and the interesting fact is that both these films were originally designed for a theatrical release. Moreover, Vikram Malhotra's Abundantia Entertainment has produced both these films where Vidya Balan is playing a title role, and he has signed up with Amazon Prime for the OTT premiere.
It's a known fact that the lady brings in a lot of gravitas to her performances, something which was seen in her 2019 release Mission Mangal too. A blockbuster, it did have Akshay Kumar leading the show but one can't deny the kind of warmth that Vidya brought into the proceedings. That continued in Shakuntala Devi too which was a very grey part for an Indian actress to bring on screen and still she did that with aplomb. Now with Sherni, she is playing the title role of a lady who is out to catch her target. Who/what exactly is that? We would know soon.
As for those who love their regular dose of drama and thrills in the OTT space, there is Sunflower arriving on 11th June. The web series is one of the biggest to be coming out on ZEE5 and with Reliance Entertainment producing it, one can well acknowledge the kind of credentials attached to it. Designed around an apartment complex called Sunflower where a murder takes place, what makes this suspense drama special is the fact that director Vikas Behl has put this together after delivering a major superhit Super 30 with Hrithik Roshan.
This time around, he has Sunil Grover leading the show and the actor appears to be in great form while bringing his characteristic humor into play. Earlier this year he was seen in a menacing avtar as Saif Ali Khan's right hand man who was out to do dirty deeds for him and this time in Sunflower, he finds the needle of suspicion pointing towards him as the no-nonsense cop Ranvir Shorey gets on his trail. With Mukul Chadha, Girish Kulkarni, Shonali Nagrani and Ashish Vidyarthi as the other key actors on the show, this one should be quite entertaining.
With The Family Man 2, Sunflower and Sherni, one just hopes that audiences do get their fair share of entertainment at least on the small screen, even as the wait continues for action to unfold all over again on the big screen.
Release dates
The Family Man 2 - Amazon Prime - 4th June
Sherni = Amazon Prime - June (exact date to be announced)
Sunflower - ZEE5 - 11th June
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