Sandip Ray to start Feluda shoot in mid-June

Sandip Ray is now all charged up for his next Feluda film. As two new producers have stepped in to bankroll the much-anticipated film the shooting will start in mid-June. And, that too, with the cast he has finalized.

For the unversed, One big production house which was supposed to fund the film and even announced the release date of the next Feluda film earlier backed out due to creative differences with the director. While Sandip Ray has zeroed in on Indraneil Sengupta as his next Feluda, the above-mentioned production house wanted to cast a different actor. Incidentally, they have cast Tota Roy Choudhury as the iconic sleuth in a Srijit Mukherji directed web series and Tota has already garnered a lot of praise playing Feluda in a recent web series, also directed by Srijit. Even Anirban Bhattacharya who has played the role of another iconic sleuth Byomkesh Bakshi was also reportedly in the race to be the next Feluda. But Sandip Ray wanted to stick to his own decision.

Not only the casting Feluda, even there was a creative difference in casting Jatayu. While Sandip Ray has roped in actor-director Abhijit Guha as Jatayu, Anirban Chakraborti was initially the favourite choice.

Now, as the original producers have backed out Florida-based entrepreneur Anjan Ghosal, a family friend of the Rays and local businessman Shyam Sundar Dey will now jointly produce the thriller `Hatyapuri’ and the camera will start rolling at a sea-resort of Puri from mid-June.

A source close to Sandip Ray said, “We understand the production house had their own priorities about certain issues. But there are no hurt feelings. We wanted the decision of casting Feluda and Jatayu in the domain of the filmmaker.”

Sandip Ray and the original producers had announced the film last year in December and also announced that it will be released during Christmas this year. After that, Sandip completed the location recce for `Hatyapuri’ in early April.

In Feluda’s next outing, Pradosh Chandra Mitra goes for a seaside vacation in Puri with Topshe and Lalmohan babu but gets involved in investigating a murder mystery.

In his previous seven Feluda movies between 2003 and 2016, we saw mostly Sabyasachi Chakraborty and Abir Chatterjee (in one film) bringing the sleuth’s character to life. In his last Feluda film, Sandip Ray merged two Feluda stories – Samaddarer Chabi and Golokdham Rahasyo – ‘Double Feluda’ in 2016. Since then fans are eagerly waiting for the next Feluda film.