Nikhil Nagesh Bhat is relatively unknown to the Indian audience even though his breakout Bollywood movie, Kill (2023), was a hit. Three years after the movie's theatrical release, he set to direct Academy Award winner Jamie Foxx in Amazon MGM Studios' upcoming action thriller Deadlocked. This one will stream on Amazon Prime Video in 2027.
Deadlocked reportedly deals with a deadly hostage crisis. The film marks Bhat's Hollywood debut. He rose to international recognition with Kill after it premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival before Lionsgate acquired it in a mid-seven-figure deal. This kind of opportunity is genuinely rare. Hollywood studios typically entrust major star-driven projects to directors with established track records in English-language cinema. Handing an Oscar winner to a filmmaker whose prior work was entirely in Hindi cinema reflects real confidence in his craft.
The question is, if this project becomes an acclaimed hit, will it pave the way for future crossover collaborations? Sandeep Reddy Vanga and Lokesh Kanagaraj have the potential to make Hollywood projects in future. Vanga, after Arjun Reddy, hinted at picking Hollywood as his go-to destination if making movies in India were to become hard for him due to excessive censorship. Lokesh's filmography has been heavily padded up by Anirudh Ravichander, but he has a unique voice of his own. Nikhil Bhatt's Deadlocked will be an interesting project to assess.
