The idea of Antim: The Final Truth playing out on a laptop screen is inconceivable to director Mahesh Manjrekar. He is of the firm opinion that the actioner, which sees Salman Khan in his element as a no-nonsense honest cop who locks horns with Aayush Sharma’s gangster, can only be done justice to on the big screen. The director reveals he is eyeing a festival release, as he says, “Antim is a film meant for the theatres. If cinemas open in Maharashtra by October — and it’s high time they did — we are planning to release Antim on Diwali. It is a film that [is targeted at the] Maharashtra territory.”

The original material — the Marathi hit, Mulshi Pattern (2018) — had found favour among the single-screen audience, and Manjrekar says his adaptation too is designed for the masses. “We are not thinking of releasing it on OTT platforms right now. The middle-class and lower-middle class audiences make films super hits by going to the theatres. This movie represents them, so I know it will do well in cinemas.”