Neeraj Pandey and Shital Bhatia promoted ‘Friday Filmworks’ launches ‘Friday Fearworks’

The makers of some of the most successful and recalled films of recent times, Friday Filmworks, announced the launch of a new sub-brand in the form of ‘Friday Fearworks’. The production house best-known for genre-breaking films like ‘A Wednesday’ (year), ‘Special 26’ (2013) and the 2015 blockbuster ‘Baby’, have forayed into the horror – thriller genre with the launch of this new label that will develop and producer work catering exclusively to the chosen genre.

In a first-of-its kind move for the Indian content market by a large production company, Friday Fearworks will focus on generating and developing ideas and scripts that will cater to the ‘chills and thrills’ seeking young Indian demographic. Genres such as horror, thriller and slasher are sought-after the world-over for their ability to deliver strong returns on investment to studios as well as provide tremendous creative liberty to writers and directors.

Speaking on the launch of Friday Fearworks, Shital Bhatia, said, “The Horror genre is one of the most under-explored and under-exploited genres in India. Both Neeraj and I felt that this is a genre we need to focus on and provide audiences with quality and intelligent content which is also commercially viable to our partners. ‘Missing’ is our first attempt in this direction and I am sure audiences would embrace it the same way as they have done our main stream offerings.

Friday Filmworks, promoted by Neeraj Pandey and Shital Bhatia, further announced the first film, ‘Missing’, under the new sub-brand. ‘Missing’ is co-produced with Abundantia Entertainment, founded by Vikram Malhotra, and marks the debut of actor Manoj Bajpayee as a producer. The film toplines Tabu, Manoj Bajpayee and Annu Kapoor and promises to be a thriller of a form and format not seen by movie-going audiences in a long time. Directed by talented new-comer Mukul Abhayankar, Missing releases this year-end.

On ‘Missing’ and Manoj Bajpayee as a co-producer, Shital further added: “Manoj coming onboard as co-producer on ‘Missing’ was a huge validation of our thoughts and efforts. Apart from Manoj being a partner on the film, his regular inputs on the creative side have been really helpful and have truly enhanced the final product. ‘Missing’ is the first one off the block and at Friday Fearworks, we aim at not just producing and releasing an average of 2-3 quality genre-pushing films every year but also fashion it as a platform for younger and newer talent to display their creativity,”