Vikram Vedha has been hitting the headlines ever since its launch. The team initially approached Shahrukh Khan for the role of Vedha but things didn't materialise and Aamir Khan's name popped up. However, he left the project after production delays due to the pandemic. And finally, Hrithik Roshan came in.
Based on the Indian folktale, 'Vikram aur Betal', the film is an edge-of-the-seat action crime thriller which tells the story of a tough police officer (Vikram played by Saif Ali Khan) who sets out to track down and hunt a menacing gangster (Vedha played by Hrithik). The film is undoubtedly one of the most anticipated movies as it marks the return of two superstars collaborating in a high-octane action film after two decades.
Directed by director couple, Pushkar and Gayatri, the film is the remake of a Tamil film by the same name. The Tamil version had Madhavan and Vijay Sethupathi playing the lead. Made with a shoestring budget of Rs. 11 crore, the film went on to gross 60 crores at the box office.
The Bollywood remake is made with a whopping Rs.100 crore plus and recently there was a controversy surrounding the budget rise. A section of the media reported that Hrithik refused to shoot the film in UP and asked the makers to move production to Dubai because of which the budget skyrocketed to Rs. 175 crore. However, the production house has completely denied the reports and clarified that the scened was shot in Dubai only due to pandemic protocols.
"We have been noticing a lot of misleading and unsubstantiated reporting on Vikram Vedha shooting locations. We want to clearly state that Vikram Vedha has been shot extensively in India, including Lucknow. A portion of the film was shot in the United Arab Emirates in October-November of 2021 since it was the only location providing the infrastructure for a bio-bubble that accommodated a crew of such scale, also allowing the building of sets in a studio during the preceding months of the shoot. We chose to do that out of health and protocol concerns. Any attempt to twist this set of facts is mischievous and untruthful," a note from Reliance Entertainment clarified.
The film also stars Radhika Apte, Rohit Saraf, Yogita Bihani, Sharib Hashmi and Satyadeep Mishra in promising roles. The neo-noir action thriller will hit the screens on September 30, 2022.
