Football fever ends, festivities begin

Ajay Devgn in the film

Christmas will bring much-deserved cheer to director Amit R Sharma and producer Boney Kapoor. The makers of Maidaan hope to call it a wrap on the Ajay Devgn-starrer by December 23, thus bringing the curtains down on the sports drama that had gone on floors in August 2019. The biopic on Syed Abdul Rahim, the late coach and manager of the Indian football team, was among the many films affected by the pandemic.

A source reveals that Devgn began Maidaan's final schedule in the second week of November, after completing his web series Rudra: The Edge of Darkness. By then, the 16-acre set at Madh Island, which was damaged by Cyclone Tauktae in May this year, was rebuilt. "Ajay shot several football matches at the makeshift stadium, including the climax that traces the India-South Korea final match of the 1962 Asian Games in Jakarta," adds the source. Apart from the matches, some emotional sequences were shot with Devgn and leading lady Priyamani. "Crucial scenes have been filmed at Ballard Pier and the Turf Club in Mahalaxmi. Three additional sets were constructed across various studios in Mumbai where more sequences were canned over the past four weeks. The crew has been continuously shooting since November, barring two days in the first week of December when the untimely rains had left the makeshift stadium wet."

The director intends to complete the schedule ahead of Christmas, after which a few days' patchwork will remain. With this, producer Kapoor will have completed five projects this year, including Mili, and Tamil films Valimai, Veetla Visheshnga and Nenjuku Needhi.