On 20 January, Amitabh Bachchan released the first look of his upcoming film Jhund. Jhund is directed by Sairat filmmaker Nagraj Manjule. In the poster shared by Bachchan, we can see the back of Amitabh Bachchan’s head. He is dressed in a blue hoodie. He seems to be standing in front of a wall, beyond which there is a basti or slum.
Bachchan tweeted, “T 3415 - JHUND ... झुंड !! ... JHUND ... झुंड !! #Jhund”
Take a look:
Nagraj has earlier directed the critically acclaimed Fandry and the hugely successful Sairat. Sairat was remade in Hindi last year as Dhadak by director Shashank Khaitan with Ishaan Khatter and Janhvi Kapoor in the lead roles.
Jhund is based on the life of Vijay Barse, a Nagpur-based retired sports professor who pioneered the international phenomenon of ‘Jhoparpatti Football’ (Slum football).
The first look of Jhund was released in February 2019.
In December 2018, Bachchan took to Twitter and shared a few photograph of himself and captioned: "'Nagpur' for 'Jhund' -- the new project by Nagraj , his first in Hindi, the maker of 'Sairat' the Marathi block buster .. a centre of attraction and 'Nagpur', geographically apparently the centre of geographic India. May the two centres thrive!"
In November, Jhund found itself in the middle of a legal controversy. Hyderabad-based filmmaker Nandi Chinni Kumar had sent legal notices to the makers of Jhund over alleged copyright infringement. The film’s director Nagraj Manjule, producer Krishan Kumar, T-Series chairman and managing director Bhushan Kumar, Bachchan, along with Akhilesh Paul and Vijay Barse, on whose life the film is based, were among those who were served notices.
Kumar has claimed that he bought the exclusive rights from Akhilesh Paul in 2017 as he intended on making a biopic, titled Slum Soccer, based on football player who was the Indian captain at the Homeless World Cup. In Jhund, Bachchan plays the role of Vijay Barse, a retired sports teacher from Nagpur who starts a slum football movement.
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