Special Ops: Hotstar Unveils Teaser Trailer for Neeraj Pandey Series, Full Trailer Out Tuesday

Hotstar has released a teaser trailer for Special Ops, an upcoming action thriller series “based on events of national significance spanning a period of 19 years” from creator and director Neeraj Pandey (A Wednesday!). It reportedly stars the likes of Kay Kay Menon (Shaurya), Karan Tacker (Ek Hazaaron Mein Meri Behna Hai), Divya Dutta (Irada), Sajjad Delafrooz (Tiger Zinda Hai), Vipul Gupta (K. Street Pali Hill), Muzamil Ibrahim (Dhokha), Sana Khan (Wajah Tum Ho), Saiyami Kher (Mirzya), Anuj Sharma (Padmaavat), Vinay Pathak (Bheja Fry), and Meher Vij (Secret Superstar). Per reports, Shivam Nair (Naam Shabana) is also a director on Special Ops alongside Pandey. Special Ops is a production of Friday Storytellers, a division of Pandey-run Friday Filmworks.

Specials Ops will be the first original in 2020 on Hotstar — soon to rebranded as Disney+ Hotstar. A full-length trailer for Special Ops will be released on Tuesday, Hotstar said.

The 50-second Special Ops teaser trailer seeks to promote the show's exotic locales — the Hotstar series was filmed in Turkey, Azerbaijan, Jordan, and India — and the action chops that Pandey is known for. In addition to 2008's A Wednesday! starring Naseeruddin Shah and Anupam Kher, the 46-year-old Pandey's action-filled career includes writing and directing the 2013 Akshay Kumar, Manoj Bajpayee, Kher-starrer Special 26, the 2015 Kumar, Rana Daggubati, Taapsee Pannu-starrer Baby, and the 2018 Sidharth Malhotra, Bajpayee-starrer Aiyaary. His only non-action venture was the 2016 biopic M.S. Dhoni: The Untold Story, with Sushant Singh Rajput and Kiara Advani.

Pandey was one of 15 filmmakers that Hotstar announced in January last year as part of its first wave of originals expansion, under the new “Hotstar Specials” label.

We've had six series since then in the hagiographical docu-series on Dhoni, Roar of the Lion; the well-acted but poorly-written eponymous remake of Criminal Justice; the intolerable Nagesh Kukunoor-created crime drama, City of Dreams; a cringe-worthy eponymous remake of The Office; an improbable eponymous remake of Israeli thriller Hostages; and a poor scene-by-scene copy of Doctor Foster in Out of Love.