Boney Kapoor & Ajay Devgn on the making of sports flick ‘Maidaan’

Sports-themed films have been seeing positive traction in recent times – be it biopics like ‘MS Dhoni - The Untold Story’, ‘Mary Kom’, ‘Bhaag Milkha Bhaag’, ‘Shabash Mithu’, ‘Saina’, or films like ‘Chak De India’, ‘83’, ‘Jhund’, ‘Gold’ and many more.

The latest film to join this bandwagon is ‘Maidaan’, which is based on the life of football coach Syed Abdul Rahim. The film will cover the period of 1952 and 1962. While Ajay Devgn will essay the role of Syed Abdul Rahim, ‘Maidaan’ also stars Priyamani and Gajraj Rao in key roles.

It took producers Boney Kapoor, Zee Studios, Akash Chawla and Arunava Joy Sengupta almost four years to make this film due to the pandemic. 

Commenting on the film, Boney Kapoo said, “We were in the middle of a crisis, which the entire world was facing. During the Covid lockdown we had our sets standing in Madh in Mumbai for around three-three and a half years. When we would get a window to shoot, we had all the players coming from all over the world – technicians would come from overseas, they would land here, shoot a match sequence for maybe 8-10 days and there would be another lockdown imposed. This happened to us thrice. In all this, it was not only about hard work, but also about having patience for four years. As a team we did not lose patience and we are glad about it. Like in the film, Rahim and his team had to struggle to win a medal and reach in the semi-final. We, too, had our set of troubles while making this film.”

Amit Sharma, director of ‘Maidaan’, added here, “Yes, it was frustrating that we started the film and then had to face problems. When you are fully prepared, but the shooting does not happen, it is quite natural to be frustrated. But when the shoot happened, it was amazing and we used to enjoy it. That is how we completed the whole film.”

This will be Ajay Devgn’s first sports film. On why he chose to do this film, Ajay said, “It feels very exciting when you watch any match at home on television or if you are playing anywhere, suddenly you feel younger. It gets very exciting. Amit trained all the boys for a year, and they all played so well in the film. I haven’t played on screen, I just have one sequence. When I do any film, I start thinking like that character. Amit had done all the research. I just had to listen to him and follow him.”

‘Maidaan’ will be releasing on Eid this year.