As a storyteller, I love to explore genres, says Rudra director Rajesh Mapuskar

Rajesh Mapuskar, who last helmed the National award-winning Marathi film Ventilator (2016), returned the director's chair for the upcoming web-series Rudra: The Edge of Darkness.

The Disney+ Hotstar crime thriller marks Ajay Devgn’s digital debut and sees him play a Mumbai cop who solves cases with his impeccable mind.  

The six-episode series, filmed across several locations in the Maximum City, reimagines Mumbai from the lens of the country’s most wanted. The series is an official adaptation of the BBC series Luther starring Idris Elba.

Produced by Applause Entertainment, in association with BBC Studios India, the cast includes Raashi Khanna, Esha Deol, Atul Kulkarni, Ashwini Kalsekar, Tarun Gahlot, Ashish Vidyarthi and Satyadeep Misra.

Mapuskar spoke about his digital debut with this psychological thriller. The filmmaker started out as an assistant to Rajkumar Hirani with Munna Bhai MBBS (2003) and made his directorial debut with Ferrari Ki Sawari (2012).

He said, “As a storyteller, I love to explore genres. My first film was a feel-good father-son film. Then, the second one [Ventilator] was a satire. I was writing my next film which was a musical. I shot Delhi Crime (Season 2) and I enjoyed the whole challenge of shooting crime.”

Speaking about his decision to come onboard Rudra: The Edge of Darkness, he said, “Then, Rudra came my way. I have done a Delhi police crime show and this was a Mumbai police crime show and a psychological thriller. It would be interesting to see the whole concept of Luther get Indianized. That was an additional challenge. That interested me. That and the fact that Ajay Devgn was down to play the lead!”

Rudra: The Edge of Darkness will be premiered on Disney+ Hotstar on 4 March in Hindi, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam and Bengali.