Boney Kapoor will have to reconstruct the sets of ‘Maidaan’ for the third time after it was completely demolished in the aftermath of cyclone Tauktae that hit Mumbai and surrounding areas on Sunday. Speaking about the devastation caused, Boney rues, “The sets have been completely damaged and I will be rebuilding it for the third time”. Quiz him as to what happened the first two times and the filmmaker clarifies, “We had to dismantle the set for the first time when the first lockdown happened, we had to reconstruct the set again and if the lockdown had not happened we would’ve completed the shooting of the film.”

Boney has already spent about Rs 22 crore in the construction of the sets and will now have to shell out Rs 7 crore more to rebuild it. “The entire set is gone except the pitch. Though the pitch, too, has suffered some damage, the curator has assured us that he will manage to salvage it. But we have already incurred an expense of Rs 30cr and work is still pending,” sighs Boney.

Following the devastation, the filmmaker has already instructed his art department to rebuild the set and plans to start the shooting once the government allows shoots to commence. But when told that there have been reports about a hybrid release of his film ‘Maidaan’ Boney rubbished it, adding, “My films are for theatres and we have already started the post-production of the film and are aiming to release it in cinema halls”.

‘Maidaan’ is a biographical sports film and has Ajay Devgn playing the role of football coach Syed Abdul Rahim.