Indian action hit Kill is getting a sequel, producer Guneet Monga revealed at Film Bazaar in Goa.
“We’re discussing and there will be a part two,” the Oscar-winning producer told Screen.
Nikhil Nagesh Bhat’s Hindi-language feature premiered at Toronto International Film Festival in 2023 where it was the first runner up for the People’s Choice Midnight Madness Award. It is produced by Monga’s Sikhya Entertainment and Dharma Productions.
“We are discussing with Dharma, and Nikhil will be the director,” said Monga, whose credits also include The Lunchbox and Peddlers. “We have lots of ideas brewing and it is deep in development.”
The first film centred around a train journey to New Delhi in which a commando must fight off a group of bandits who are terrorising passengers. It starred Lakshya, Raghav Juyal, Ashish Vidyarthi, Harsh Chhaya and Tanya Maniktala.
Kill was a box office hit in India and abroad, grossing nearly $60m worldwide and an English-language remake is in the works at Lionsgate and 87Eleven Entertainment. John Wick’s Chad Stahelski is directing the remake.
“There’s a conversation about being involved with the remake,” Monga revealed. “Chad’s team said, ‘please be a part of it’.” The producer did not rule out the possibility of further language adaptations but said other versions are “not yet” in the works.
Open doors
For now, Monga is gearing up for the release of Netflix documentary Yo Yo Honey Singh: Famous about the Indian hip-hop star who stepped back from the industry after suffering with his mental health. “He was all the rage and the culture growing up and then he just disappeared from the entire system,” Monga explained. “No one knows the whole story, so this documentary is a tell-all.”
The producer also recently wrapped on a “double agent spy thriller” starring Ayushmann Khurrana and Sara Ali Khan; and has been eyeing up several other genre projects here at Film Bazaar.
She is in Film Bazaar with 14 colleagues to explore the co-production projects, “a couple” of which she is hopeful about collaborating with.
As with Kill and the recent spy thriller, the co-productions she’s investigating are genre projects – something that Monga believes is the key to unlocking India’s global potential.
“[Action] is a transient language. Kill allowed me to get into global distribution in a new way,” she explains.
Monga won an Oscar in 2023 in best documentary short film for The Elephant Whisperers, following the Oscar for 2019’s Period. End of Sentence (which she executive produced). “Many more doors have opened internationally but also nationally,” she revealed. “People [in India] think I know my stuff more.
“There’s been more access and there is definitely more money and more equity on the table for us to do business. But now it’s up to the material to help me take this position forward.”
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