The year 2020 seems to be the year of biopics. While 2019 saw films like The Accidental Prime Minister, Thackeray, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Manikarnika and Super 30, 2020 will see a surfeit of biopics flooding the theatres, telling stories of real individuals.
First off the block, slated to release this year itself, will be Taapsee Pannu and Bhumi Pednekar’s Saand Ki Aankh. This will be followed by Ashutosh Gowariker’s Panipat, which will chronicle the life of Sadashivrao Bhau, played by Arjun Kapoor. Deepika Padukone will herald two such films — Chhapaak, based on acid attack survivor Laxmi Agarwal, and ’83 where her husband Ranveer Singh plays the lead. Sidharth Malhotra will be seen as Vikram Batra in Shershaah while Parineeti Chopra will be seen in and as Saina Nehwal.
Additionally, Janhvi Kapoor will play the role of Gunjan Saxena in Kargil Girl, Hashvardhan Kapoor and dad Anil Kapoor will play Abhinav Bindra and his father, respectively, in the biopic on the shooter, Vidya Balan will be seen as Shakuntala Devi and later as Indira Gandhi, Himesh Reshammiya as Bishnu Shreshtha, Emraan Hashmi as KC Kuruvilla, Vicky Kaushal first as Udham Singh and then as Sam Manekshaw, Nawazuddin Siddiqui will return to play Thackeray in the second part, and perhaps in the George Fernandes biopic as well. A biopic on cricketer Mithali Raj is also in the works, for which Taapsee has been approached.
Meanwhile, Ajay Devgn has four biopics coming up. One on the Maratha Warrior Tanaaji, the other on IAF officer Vijay Karnik on Bhuj: The Pride of India and the biopic of football coach Syed Abdul Rahim. Ajay is also slated to play the lead role of Chanakya in a film by Neeraj Pandey sometime in the future.
Akshay Kumar, who has already played the Nanavati character in Rustom and the Havaldar Ishar Singh character in Kesari (apart from inspired characters in Airlift, PadMan and Mission Mangal), is expected to play National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and Prithviraj Chauhan in the biopic by Dr Chandraprakash Dwivedi.
“There are other biopics in the offing on Osho, Ma Anand Sheela, which has Priyanka Chopra playing the role, and Alia Bhatt has to play mountaineer Arunima Sinha. Meanwhile, there are also other films like the Jayalalithaa biopic, the Dingko Singh biopic, the Narayana Murthy and Sudha Murthy stories, Bhushan Kumar’s offering for his father Gulshan Kumar through Mogul, which still need to work on release dates and the rest of the casting,” says an industry source.
