Samuk finishes UK shoot, Akshay Kumar film heads to Mumbai for last 20 days

Akshay Kumar's sci-fi action thriller Samuk has finished its long UK schedule. The unit now moves to Mumbai for one last 20-day stretch of filming.

The team had been shooting in the UK since late August, and nearly 80 per cent of the film was reportedly canned there. Mumbai will cover whatever remains on a project that has been in development for more than two years.

Kanishk Varma directs, while Vipul Amrutlal Shah produces under his Sunshine Pictures banner, with Aashin A. Shah as co-producer. This is the first time Akshay and Vipul Amrutlal Shah have worked together in 13 years, and they are going big: the film mixes science fiction, action and survival on a large theatrical scale.

Rukmini Maitra, Vineet Kumar Singh, Rajat Kapoor, Swanand Kirkire, Banita Sandhu and Sushant Singh round out the ensemble. Nobody has said who plays whom yet, and the makers are keeping the plot locked away too.

Alec Gillis, the Academy Award-nominated creature-effects designer known for the Alien and Predator franchises, is building the film's central alien creature. The production chose a grounded look, pairing his creature effects with large action sequences.

Samuk is aiming for a pan-India theatrical release in 2027.