Exclusive! Rishab Shetty undergoing horse-riding training for Kantara 2

Ever since Kannada filmmaker-actor Rishab Shetty announced that he would, indeed, make another film in the Kantara franchise, there is very little he has let slip about how he intends to take the narrative forward. The only solid bits of information he has revealed so far is that the story will be set earlier than the events of the original, making it a prequel, and that he has begun working on the script as of this Ugadi.

Kantara followed the story of a local ruffian Shiva (Rishab), whose father was a daiva narthaka who disappeared into the darkness of the forest when the former was a young lad. From being a non-believer to following in his father’s footsteps, the narrative follows Shiva’s transformational journey and ends with him too disappearing without a trace, leaving behind his heavily-pregnant wife. While this opened up the possibility of a sequel following what happened to Shiva and his offspring, Rishab is instead going back in time.

The latest we hear is that the actor has begun taking horse-riding lessons back home in Mangaluru in preparation for the role, which amplifies the excitement around what he could be planning for Kantara 2 multi-fold.

Meanwhile, back when Rishab was making Kantara, it was a relatively small budget film in comparison to the box office returns it eventually had, but for the filmmaker, it was his biggest till date. Latest reports now suggest that Hombale Films, which backed Kantara, has allotted Rishab a budget that is many times what he’d spent on the original, with some speculating that he will be working with a Rs 100 crore purse to dip into.