Dharma Productions’ new cricket film to add to Bollywood’s sports dramas

New Delhi: Karan Johar’s Dharma Productions has said that its new film, Mr and Mrs Mahi, starring Rajkummar Rao and Janhvi Kapoor, will release on 15 March 2024. The cricket-based film has been directed by Sharan Sharma, known for Gunjan Saxena- The Kargil Girl, and will add to Bollywood’s growing list of sports dramas.

To be sure, Indian cinema’s love for sports films is evident in the number of titles released over the past few months as well as those slated for the coming weeks. Ranveer Singh essayed the role of cricketer Kapil Dev in ’83 directed by Kabir Khan while Maidaan starring Ajay Devgn as real-life football coach Syed Abdul Rahim will arrive in theatres soon.

Taapsee Pannu also played cricketer Mithali Raj in a film called Shabaash Mithu last year. More recently, Hindi film industry also turned to the specific genre of women and sports films to drive theatrical audiences, as real slice-of-life stories emerge and female-led cinema finds more favour at the box office. In March 2021, T-Series released Saina, based on the life of badminton player Saina Nehwal, starring Parineeti Chopra.

A graduate of the Film and Television Institute of India, Rao started his career by making a small, uncredited appearance in Ram Gopal Varma’s 2010 political thriller Rann but was first noticed in Dibakar Banerjee’s Love Sex Aur Dhokha (2010). In 2013, he appeared in the Hansal Mehta-directed biographical drama Shahid, for which he won the national award for best actor.

Kapoor made her acting debut in 2018 with the Shashank Khaitan-directed romance Dhadak, which was a Hindi-language remake of the 2016 Marathi film Sairat. She was last seen in Good Luck Jerry, a remake of the 2018 Tamil film Kolamaavu Kokila, produced by Aanand L. Rai that streamed on Disney+ Hotstar, and in Mili, a remake of the Malayalam film Helen.