Guess Who: Powerful Writer Delayed Ambitious Web Series

Rajeev Masand has published a blind item in Open The Magazine about a powerful writer, who is the reason behind the delay of an ambitious web series.

This director has delivered a critically & commercially acclaimed hit. The best part was the movie had no hero. The leading lady’s acting chops were questionable. The movie which was based on real events, became a turning point in the star kid’s career. He then took up the web series in question. It is sad to know that the project did not materialize. The web series was rumored to be on the lines of an international show, which had a huge fan following across the globe.

While generally it is the leading stars who are guilty of incessantly delaying a project, this time around it is the writer. The wrtier-lyricist should have at least kept the director in the loop & backed out of the project early on. This is highly unprofessional of him if true.

Blind Item

This respected advertising and feature filmmaker who was among the first Indians to be signed up by a leading international streaming platform to create an original series may have parted ways with them after he pulled the plug on his ambitious (and expensive) show he’d been developing for some years. The filmmaker had landed what some described as a “very sweet deal” to create a mythological action series, for which he partnered with one of Bollywood’s most well-known writer-lyricists.

The show kept getting postponed because the writer was busy with other commitments: primarily a prestigious position he landed on account of his closeness to the current Government. The filmmaker waited nearly three years for the writer to deliver the script—the clock after all was ticking since he’d already collected the cheque from the platform—but it never arrived because of the writer’s chock-a-block schedule.

According to sources, it led to a huge falling-out between the filmmaker and the writer since considerable money had been spent on international reccees and casting. The filmmaker had to ultimately bear the costs incurred even as he had to return the sizeable advance he’d received. The filmmaker and the writer don’t speak anymore; there were no repercussions for the writer’s unprofessionalism. The filmmaker just wanted to move on; the platform did not want to take on the writer who has become extremely powerful and popular with the establishment.

Our Guess

Filmmaker: Ram Madhvani

Streaming Platform: Amazon