MUMBAI: Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited’s (ZEEL) creative and production studio Essel Vision Productions is gearing up for its much anticipated film – Jazbaa. The movie, which is touted as Aishwarya Rai Bachchan's comeback film, is slated to go on floors on 20 January.

Essel Vision Productions will be producing the movie in association with Sanjay Gupta's White Feather Films and Sachiin Joshi’s Viiking Entertainment. The movie also stars Shabana Azmi, Irrfan Khan, Anupam Kher, Chandan Roy Sanyal, Atul Kulkarni, Siddharth Kapoor, Baby Sara Arjun and Priya Banerjee. It will be directed by Gupta.

Speaking on its foray, Essel Vision CEO Nittin Keni said, "Jazbaa is an amazing story intertwined with superlative action, drama and mystery. It is the kind of entertaining and meaningful cinema that we want our audience to associate us with. Supported with keen creative & business acumen we are confident that we deliver compelling, profitable entertaining content to global audiences."

Jazbaa is a crime thriller and filled with unpredictable twists in the plot hence it was imperative for the actors to be completely in sync with their characters. With the film all set to go on the floors on 20 January, the makers organised a script reading session, which gave an opportunity for the cast and crew to come together to understand and prepare their roles thoroughly.

The script reading session was helmed by Gupta along with scriptwriters Kamlesh Pandey and Robin Bhatt. It opened interesting conversations among the actors about the concept in India for a Bollywood film. This was later followed by a detailed dialogue with the creative team including sound designer Resul Pookutty and cinematographer Sameer Arya.

Commenting on the narration, Gupta said, "The script reading session of Jazbaa with the entire cast and crew went off very well. Internationally, it's the norm and I think it helps the cast bond with each other before the shooting starts. It's a better arrangement than having the actors meet each other only when they reach the sets when the shoot begins. Writers sometimes tend to miss out certain elements when they are so close to the script. The inputs I received from the actors were fresh as they have interesting perspectives when they hear the story at one go like this and will only help us make a better film. It was also an ice breaker for the talent on the film since most of my cast are working with each other for the first time."

Keeping the lead actress’ parenting duties in mind, Gupta, who is also father to a young child, plans to shoot the film only on weekdays.

Shabana and Aishwarya hit if off instantly as they waited for Irrfan to join them. It was not surprising to see Aishwarya go up to and welcome the young child actor, Sara, on board the film by hugging her. Even as Sara smiled and told her that was her huge fan, the actress responded by saying, “Don't be my fan, you're my daughter!”