Sudeep's Phantom takes off amid coronavirus scare

Kiccha Sudeep's Phantom is the first Kannada movie to commence the shooting amid the coronavirus scare and after the lockdown came into effect in March. The Kannada film was formally launched on Thursday, 16 July, with a 'muhurat at the Annapoorna Studios in Telangana.

The actor made the announcement of shooting commencement on his Twitter account and stated that the production house has taken necessary safety measures. He wrote,"#PhantomStartsRolling at hyd. Every minute precautions've been taken care of by the production n its nicer to see great spirits and enthusiasm on set. Each available person is taking every necessary step to remain safe. Hoping for everything to sail through smoothly. Best wshsHugging face. [sic]"

Sudeep claimed every member on the set is from Sandalwood and not from other film industry. Kiccha posted, "Also happy tat though its a minimized crowd we were allowed to have acc to the govt rules tats been laid,, Every member on set, may it be Technical,Unit,Production,Art etc are from KFI. Intention was to provide work to as many members as we could from the family of KFI. [sic]"

Anup Bhandari of RangiTaranga fame is directing the movie. It is a fantasy drama which has the music of B Ajaneesh Lokanath and William David's cinematography. Art director Shivakumar has created a major set in the Annapoorna Studios.

Manjunath Gowda aka Jack Manju is producing the film under the banner of Shalini Artss. The hunt for the heroine is on.

The shooting of movies across the nation came to standstill after the government had imposed lockdown over coronavirus outbreak in March. Now, the permission is being given to shoot with limited people, but lots of conditions have been laid to resume filming.