Pulling out all the stops for first look

Ajay Devgn

If there's anyone who understands the lasting impact of the first impression, it has got to be the film director tasked with luring the audience with an impactful trailer. As though condensing a three-hour narrative into a three-minute teaser isn't challenging enough, a director must also make this first glimpse so irresistible that cinemagoers begin to count down to the day of the release. Evidently, then, Ajay Devgn intended to leave no stone unturned when presenting his long-in-the-making sports film, Maidaan, the trailer of which was edited by the team that deftly chops the movies of the likes of Christopher Nolan.

Christopher Nolan

A trade source tells mid-day that during his time spent in London, director Amit R Sharma took the film to the Trailer Park Group team, which created the trailers for Nolan's Oppenheimer (2023), Tenet (2020), and Inception (2010). "Producer Boney Kapoor has employed the best crew, equipment, and technicians for this film. This is also the team that made the trailers of Marvel's Black Panther [2018], and Eternals [2021]. In India, trailers have usually had a defined template, and the makers wanted to break that mould, which is why this step was taken," says the source, adding that the VFX has also been done by an international team.

That leading man Devgn found the edit exciting, emotional, and dramatic, all at once, implies that the team was assured that it would find favour among viewers. "Despite comprehending the film only via the subtitles, the American team did a phenomenal job," says the source. Set in 1950s India, Maidaan, which sees Devgn play the part of Syed Abdul Rahim, known as the architect of modern Indian football, will release in five languages, including Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada. It marks the Hindi film debut of National Award-winner Keerthy Suresh.