Kabir Khan’s The Forgotten Army, an eight-part mini-series for Amazon Prime Video, will go on the floors end of December on a massive set being constructed at Film City in Mumbai. The director, whose last film was the disastrous Tubelight in July starring Salman Khan, announced it in April by saying, “The web series has a scale and reach far greater than any Hindi film. It is no different from making a feature film. There is no compromise on scale or budget just because of the size of the screen.”
In The Forgotten Army, which was originally meant to be a feature film, Khan intends to touch upon several stories based on true events in the struggle for Independence. Not just the men who fought this heroic war, but also the women who were part of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose’s Indian National Army (INA), will be part of this series on the struggles and spirit of the soldiers.
However, Khan is quick to point out that The Forgotten Army is not about Bose alone. “It deals with the entire INA which he helmed. There were so many brave soldiers fighting by his side who history has forgotten,” the director is quoted as having said. He already had raw material for the series leftover from a documentary he made in 1999 about the INA. “I wanted to convert that into a feature film,” Khan admitted, “But when I got a chance to do this series, I decided to change my plan.”
Sources say that the war scenes for The Forgotten Army will be shot at the Film City sets. Khan is adamant on delivering a show that has an intriguing storyline and tremendous visual appeal. He promises not to compromise on the budget and intends on making this series as grand as, if not more, than his feature films with Salman Khan including Bajrangi Bhaijaan, Ek Tha Tiger, and Tubelight.
Although this Khan duo has worked its magic on the box office multiple times, Khan approached Saif Ali Khan for The Forgotten Army. But Saif, after showing interest, turned down the offer due to other commitments one of which was the Netflix series Sacred Games. Khan is also looking for a strong female lead and has apparently approached Shraddha Kapoor and Pareeniti Chopra for the role. Each episode of The Forgotten Army is speculated to be 40 minutes long. It marks Kabir Khan’s debut in OTT digital video service space.
