The war of Byomkesh has begun. Puja 2019 will see two Byomkesh films clashing at the box office. While one stars Parambrata Chatterjee as the iconic sleuth, the other will show Abir Chatterjee continuing as Byomkesh. Both films have some industry heavyweights backing them. While it’s not known when the Abir venture will go on the floors, the Parambrata venture will begin end-July. A source close to the unit of the Sayantan Ghoshal film said, “Some of the unit members will be busy with Anjan Dutt’s next film, ‘Shaheber Cutlet’, all through July. Once the movie is canned, they will move on to the Byomkesh film.
In fact, Anjan too has an important part to play in the movie, apart from the fact that he is the screenplay writer for this Byomkesh movie.” Sayantan’s film is a screen adaptation of Sharadindu Bandopadhyay’s ‘Magna Mainak’ and will star Rudranil Ghosh as Ajit. Though details about the Abir film are not yet available, speculation is rife that Birsa Dasgupta will direct the movie. Work is on to adapt the author’s famous work, ‘Pather Kanta’. Arindam Sil, who directed Abir in three Byomkesh films, including ‘Har Har Byomkesh’, ‘Byomkesh Pawrbo’ and ‘Byomkesh Gotro’, was also working on another novel by the author. Several actors have played Byomkesh before. After Abir, Jisshu, Anirban Bhattacharya, Dhritiman Chaterji, even Gaurav Chakraborty essayed the character, it was decided that Parambrata as Byomkesh should capture the unexplored aspects of his character — restlessness, daredevilry, political awareness. Abir’s is likely to the classic take on the Bengali sleuth.
