87th Birthday assignment for Dharmendra is Sriram Raghavan’s Ikkis

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After Badlapur, National award-winning director Sriram Raghavan teams up with Dinesh Vijan for Ikkis, starring the megastar Dharmendra and Agastya Nanda, Amitabh Bachchan’s grandson. Sriram last directed Dharmendra in his own 2007 debut, Johnny Gaddar, which introduced the late singer Mukesh’s grandson, Neil Nitin Mukesh.

The makers made the announcement of their exciting project on the special occasion of Dharmendra’s 87^th birthday.

Ikkis (21) is a a war-drama based on the life of Second Lieutenant Arun Khetarpal. He is the youngest recipient of the Param Vir Chakra (the highest honor given to a soldier). The film will go on floors next year.

Agastya Nanda technically makes his debut in Zoya Akhtar’s The Archies, but that film will release on Disney+Hotstar, thus making Ikkis his first big-screen release. Incidentally, Varun Dhawan’s name had been announced earlier for this role, and he has worked with Sriram as well as Dinesh in Badlapur. But for some reason (dates or the failure of his last few films, including Dinesh’s Bhediya, we wonder?), he is no longer in.

As for the legend, this is Dharmendra’s second outside assignment after the forthcoming Karan Johar film, Rocky Aur Rani ki Prem Kahani. His last such film was also Johnny Gaddar, as after that, he had done four home productions—Apne and the three films in the Yamla Pagla Deewana franchise. Of course, he had put in cameos in Farah Khan’s Om Shanti Om and Anil Sharma’s Singh Saab The Great.