Wall full of true-life crimes and criminals created for Cuttputlli, reveals director Ranjit M Tewari

In the upcoming Disney+ Hotstar film Cuttputlli (2022), Akshay Kumar is on the hunt for a serial killer who is taunting the police and targeting his victims out in public spaces.

Directed by Ranjit M Tewari, the thriller features a scene where the actor has to go through his research of previous serial killers in his room trying to understand the mentality and the ideology behind the mind of a criminal. The director revealed that the room featured a wall of over 500 real newspaper clippings of true-life stories, with real criminals.

Cuttputlli trailer: Akshay Kumar is on the hunt for a serial killer

Speaking about the production design, Tewari shared, “Akshay sir's character, Arjan Sethi, is obsessed with the crime world and the world of serial killing. He starts the journey as a character of a filmmaker in the Punjabi film industry, who is obsessed and has done research over 7 to 10 years to make a film on the crime world. So when we were creating his world - the house and the setting - it was very important for me to give him a space in which he feels part of Arjan Sethi rather than anyone else, and Arjan as a character is immersed, obsessed in this world of crime.”

He continued, “Therefore, we thought, what can we do that is not subtle but impactful for him, so we just dressed up the entire wall with news paper cuttings and photographers of real people, so that he gets a feel to it while shooting, that he has lived this life, that he has been part of this life. The art department, production designers and ADs [assistant directors], we all came together and we decided to find the real images, and real newspaper articles written on them, so that we could setup the space to make him feel a part of Arjan Sethi as much as he could.”

“We decided to have them from archive, research and websites; find the real images of those times, whether it is Ted Bundy, or Seema Gavit, or Cyanide Mohan. All these people from India as well as from abroad who are serial killers and [their] real articles put up on the wall and when Akshay sir saw it for the first time before shooting, he was so so happy with the kind of detailing that went into building the foundation from where he could start shooting the film,” the director added.

Produced by Vashu Bhagnani, Jackky Bhagnani and Deepshikha Deshmukh of Pooja Entertainment, Cuttputlli pairs Akshay Kumar and Rakul Preet Singh together for the first time.

The Disney+ Hotstar film is due to be premiered on 2 September on the streaming platform.