'Special Ops 2' creator Neeraj Pandey reflects on debut 'A Wednesday': 'It was a film that completely went against the trend'

Neeraj Pandey's work in the feature-length cinema space in the last decade may not have really hit the mark, however, the filmmaker behind Special 26, Baby and A Wednesday has been doing relatively better with the long-form content in the OTT space, with his hands-on involvement on shows like Special Ops, Special Ops 1.5: The Himmat Story, Khakee: The Bihar Chapter and Khakee: The Bengal Chapter.

While doing the press tour for Special Ops 2, the second follow-up to the Kay Kay Menon-fronted thriller series, platformed by JioHotstar, Neeraj Pandey reflected on his debut feature A Wednesday, starring Naseeruddin Shah and Anupam Kher — a surprise hit later remade in Tamil and Telugu as Unnaipol Oruvan with Mohanlal and Kamal Haasan. (Venkatesh played Mohanlal's role in the Telugu version.) It was also remade in Sri Lanka as A Common Man, with Ben Kingsley in Naseeruddin's role.

In a conversation with ANI, Pandey said he gets often asked about the film, released in 2008, indicating the influence it holds on fans after all these years. "When you're making your debut film, you're doing it with actors you believe in. The film and the format went against the trend and so did the actors and casting," he added, sharing that the encouraging response to the film made him feel "more responsible as a storyteller. You try to be more accountable with every film and every story you make. And that's the path that was charted with the release of A Wednesday."

Before he was able to roll cameras on A Wednesday, Pandey had encountered some difficulty getting approval for his casting choices from producers. The fact that both Naseeruddin Shah and Anupam Kher were senior actors and the fact that the film featured no songs or other conventional masala film ingredients made things slightly complicated.

Another strange thing happened when Naseeruddin's manager informed him that the veteran thespian didn't like the script, revealed by Pandey in an interview with Fever FM last year. However, when the actor personally called him later to tell him he liked it and agreed to do the film, that's when Pandey breathed a sigh of relief.  

Special Ops 2, which stars Kay Kay Menon, Karan Tacker, Vinay Pathak, Muzammil Ibrahim, Saiyami Kher and Meher Vij, along with new entrants Tahir Raj Bhasin and Prakash Raj, hits JioHotstar on July 11.

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