Producer Nikkhil Advani announced a second season of 'Freedom at Midnight', an adaptation of Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre's 1975 non-fiction book on India's independence, before the first season has even ended.
The seven-part first season ends on a cliffhanger, as showrunner Advani revealed that Season 2 will address the refugee crisis in the wake of India's partition.
Speaking to variety.com, Advani said: "Twenty to thirty million people are going to be uprooted from their homes. What Gandhi had predicted was going to happen. Everybody felt that partition was going to be the answer to quell the violence and to stop it. Mahatma Gandhi said it is only going to become worse."
Advani had arrived in Goa to take part in the just-concluded market Film Bazaar, as a part of IFFI which is an ongoing affair.
Advani was attending a panel discussion organized by Confederation of Indian Industry and hosted on a yacht by the Indian Motion Picture Producers' Association.
As for Danish Khan, executive VP and business head of SonyLIV and StudioNext, the second season will arrive in 2025.
"We will tell stories of India in a very authentic, cerebral way. There is a set of people who are our subscribers who appreciate highly researched, authenticated work," he added.
Talking about the main challenges, Advani said: "The events between August 16, 1946, when (Muhammad Ali) Jinnah chose to give the Direct Action Day speech, and January 30, 1940 – these events are indisputable."
"It's almost like a roller coaster."
The biggest challenge was how do you adapt a 1000-page book (that too a non-fiction book at that) without losing the essence of it. And manage to make it enjoyable for a large swathe of audience who may or may not be lovers of history," SonyLIV head of content Saugata Mukherjee added.
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