Akshay Kumar begins 'Rustom' with a strong ensemble cast

The New Year has begun with a bang for KriArj Entertainment (founded by Virendra Arora and Arjun N Kapoor), Friday Filmworks (Neeraj Pandey and Shital Bhatia's production house) and media conglomerate Zee Studios.

Their first joint collaboration, the Akshay Kumar starrer 'Rustom,' went on the floors at the start of the year. Directed by debutant Tinu Suresh Desai and written by Vipul Rawal, the film inspired from real-life incidents and set in the late '50s, also features Ileana D'Cruz opposite Akshay and Esha Gupta essaying a grey role. The movie also features Sachin Khedekar, Pavan Malhotra, Kumud Mishra, Parmeet Sethi, Sharad Kelkar, Kanwaljit Singh and Brijendra Kala adding further depth to this strong ensemble cast.




Nittin Keni and Akash Chawla of Zee Studios say, "In line with our vision of bringing great content and great stories with a strong and stellar cast, 'Rustom' fits the bill perfectly. With the film being collaborated with fantastic creative and technical crew and the star cast being led by Akshay, we fully believe that the audiences will enjoy this thoroughly." Talking about their actors, Pandey adds, "I am a firm believer in strong ensemble casts as good storytelling can only be effective through strong overall performances " right down from the main lead to the smaller characters. Akshay to me, as I have often stated, is far more than a star and brings a strong commercial value to the project. He is one of the finest actors we have. Complement this with really strong performers in Ileana and Esha and the rest of the cast " and we have a dream team."




The collaboration of two production houses and a corporate studio with Akshay is exactly a set-up that Virendra Arora had wanted to achieve for their company's foray into this industry. Arjun adds, "This is the momentous start that was being meticulously worked towards for our company. With 'Rustom' as our first offering, the audiences will get a taste of what they can expect from us as filmmakers. Yes, we do know these are initial days but then as most people would agree that the foundation is more important than anything else."