After backing many innovative concepts, ZEE5 is backing a sci-fi web series, which also happens to be the first of its kind in India. Says a source, “ZEE5, along with Shabina Khan (producer of Rowdy Rathore and Gabbar Is Back), have bought the rights to Aroon Raman’s book Skyfire, which is also the title of the show. There has never been a series in this space. Soumik Sen will be directing it.” It is expected to roll this month in Mumbai and will be shot at other locations like Delhi, Dehradun, Kerala and Bhutan.
The cast has been locked, too. “Prateik Babbar and Sonal Chauhan will be the leads. They will be joined by Bengali actor Jisshu Sengupta and Jatin Goswami,” adds the source. Sonal plays a historian, Meenakshi Pirzada, while Prateik plays Chandrasekhar, a journalist.
Sonal confirms the development, “I wanted to get into the web space, but I hadn’t found anything satisfactory. When Shabina told me about this series, I was instantly interested. I had not read the book then but now, we have been doing our readings together. I have now read the book twice. It’s an interesting concept about weather control and is in the sci-fi space. It’s going to mess with people’s heads. It’s an issue that needs to be thought about; it’s scary but fascinating.”
What’s Skyfire about?
India is hit by a series of freak weather disturbances and startling epidemics that threaten to bring the country to its knees. At the same time, children disappear from the slums in the capital and nobody seems to care. Stumbling upon these strange and seemingly unrelated incidents, journalist Chandrasekhar, historian Meenakshi Pirzada and intelligence operative Syed Ali Hassan follow a trail. They find themselves in the drawing rooms of Delhi’s glittering high society and eventually end up in Bhutan. Here, it all ends in a terrifying climax, where they come face-to-face with a powerful and evil force.
