The Royals 2: Directors replace Reen as shoot resets

Behind-the-scenes turmoil has been brewing on ‘The Royals’ since production on its second season kicked off. Back in May, reportedly that Bhumi Pednekar would not be returning to her role in the show (Love lost in palace, May 10), and last month director Jasmeet K Reen also stepped away from the project.

Mitakshara Kumar, who co-directed ‘Heeramandi: The Diamond Bazaar’, has now taken charge of the shoot in Jaipur, with Nitya Mehra, co-director of ‘Hunkkaar: The Roar’, set to come on board shortly.

‘The Royals 2’ undergoes a full production reset

Reen reportedly shot for five days, but that footage will be redone under Kumar’s direction, and the production is also said to have gone back over the scripted material. All of this points to a full-scale production reset rather than a simple swap of directors.

According to Mid-Day, the shoot has now resumed in Jaipur with Mitakshara and the team is working on the revised version. The unit’s focus now is to complete its daily schedule.

The team is effectively starting afresh and has to make up for the time lost while keeping the budgets in check.

Why ‘The Royals 2’ is reshooting Reen’s footage

According to reports, Jasmeet struggled to keep pace with the scale of the show. In the first few days, the crew was left puzzled because there was little guidance on how to proceed.

No day’s shoot was ever wrapped on time, and unfinished scenes kept rolling over to the next day. Since the footage didn’t live up to what was expected of the pilot, the new directors will redo all five days of her scenes.

Nitya Mehra’s credits

Nitya Mehra has showrun and directed select episodes of ‘Made in Heaven’, and she has also co-directed ‘Big Girls Don’t Cry’ (2024) and ‘Hunkkaar: The Roar’.

Mitakshara Kumar’s credits

Mitakshara Kumar is the director of ‘The Empire’ (2021) and also helmed a few episodes of ‘Heeramandi: The Diamond Bazaar’ (2024).