“Stree 2,” the most successful Bollywood film of the year and India’s second-highest-grossing film of 2024, is set to be joined by one or more sequels, the film’s director Amar Kaushik said on Wednesday.
Kaushik was speaking at the Knowledge Series seminar that is part of the Film Bazaar Project Market located next to the International Film Festival of India (IFFI) in Goa.
“We have stories in mind and will be shooting soon, though there is no fixed schedule. Naturally, it will have to take place in Madhya Pradesh. We may explore other parts of the state,” Kaushik said.
Kaushik revealed that Madhya Pradesh was not where he first envisioned making the horror-comedy which saw its first part coming out in 2018 and spawned a sequel that was released earlier this year.
“‘Stree’ was originally scheduled to be made here in Goa. But then we chose to move to the heart of the region and chose Chanderi in MP. I wanted to avoid some of the scary stereotypes and look for a city rather than a beach or a haunted house. In Chanderi (we found Rich in choice) Every lane and street seemed to be calling me I would make ‘Stree 3’ or ‘Stree 4’ there again.
The symposium aimed to explain Madhya Pradesh’s strengths as a film and television production location, and covered aspects such as financial incentives, location scouting and craft skills.
The state began filming incentives in 2020, and is expected to expand them further in the near future.
“Incentives are a work in progress and we are open to new ideas for further innovation in the policy,” said Shew Shekhar Shukla, Principal Secretary, Ministry of Tourism and Culture, Madhya Pradesh.
He claimed that the incentives, breadth of locations and location services make the state the most suitable for films in India. Locations can be explored through a film promotion website, and there is a ‘Film Facilitation Cell that can help explore beyond the easy and obvious’. He also said that the state is a safe destination for women and that more women are being trained to be frontliners in tourism and film facilitation.
Aparna Purohit, the former Netflix executive who now heads Aamir Khan’s production house, and who previously shot Kiran Rao’s Laapataa Ladies in the state, also received praise. “Within an 80-kilometre radius of Bhopal, we found everything we needed. In fact, we looked for two things and found ten,” she said.
Nitanshi Goel, the film’s co-actor, described the local actors as “extremely talented”. The Indian film is a contender for the Academy Award for Best International Film this year.
Further institutional development of the state may also be on the way. Actor-producer, Vani Tripathi Tikku, was the founder of Madhya Pradesh Natya Vidyalaya Drama School in Bhopal, which after 16 years of operation, is now set to be upgraded to university status. She also said that she is setting up a development lab project for young innovators