Vishal’s father, Capt. Shivaji Mahadkar (a businessman) enrolled him for kindergarten in the renowned Bombay Scottish School. However, it was on the behest of his father, Col. Dattatraya Mahadkar that Shivaji sent Vishal to Oxford, England to study in the prestigious Dragon School, a prep school for Eton College, where his own idol Lord Mountbatten had studied. Vishal left Bombay Scottish School at a tender age of 8 years and moved to Oxford.
Having completed the “A Grade” there he returned to India only to study in Sherwood College, Nainital, where other Bollywood biggies like Amitabh Bachan, Kabir Bedi and Dalip Tahil have studied. After a couple of years in Nainital, Vishal went on to study in institutions like Mithibai College and Swinburne University of Technology where he studied Business Administration.
Early career (1991 to 2004):
On Vishal’s return to India in 1999, Vishal, under the guidance of his father, started his own Multimedia business. He took on a franchise of Arena Multimedia and started Mahadkar Infotech, which took on websites and other multimedia projects. Vishal enjoyed the creative aspect of the business and personally spearheaded all projects executed by the company. Here he was exposed to technologies involved in film making such as CGI, VFX and editing. Being an avid film audience, Vishal’s interest in filmmaking was evolving. However, with the IT meltdown starting in 2001, his business had already started taking on water. He finally made the stark decision to wind up operations in 2003.
It was then that Vishal met childhood friend Mohit Suri. Suri expressed to Vishal that his direction team had an opening if Vishal wanted it. After giving the proposal a lot of thought, Vishal finally took the risky decision of foraying into a completely new career.
Early Film Career (2004 to 2011):
Vishal joined Suri’s direction team on film “Kalyug” as a junior Assistant Director, and spent time closely learning the craft with Kunal Deshmukh, who was also on the team. Vishal was then pushed up to 2nd A.D. on film “Woh Lamhe” starring Kangana Ranaut and Shiney Ahuja. Vishal was now being monitored closely by the Bhatt brothers as he was then promoted to Chief Assistant Director in film “Awarapan”, starring childhood friend Emraan Hashmi. It was during Awarapan that Vishal got to spend a lot of time with mentor Mahesh Bhatt. replica breitling Seeing a potential director in Vishal, the Bhatts then promoted him to Associate Director in film “Raaz 2” Starring Emraan Hashmi and Kangana Ranaut. During this period, Vishal was being groomed and also tested, given troubled projects to handle. Vishal passed with flying colors and was on his way to becoming a director.
Film Career (2011 onwards):
Vishal started pitching projects to the Bhatts and also wrote a number of scripts. However it was in 2011 that they finally saw potential in one of his story ideas involving the diamond mafia. They green lit the idea and Vishal hired award winning writer Upendra Sidhaye to pen this idea into a script. This script was later titled “Blood Money” and Kunal Kemmu and Amrita Puri were roped in to star in Vishal’s debut film.
Vishal made “Blood Money” in record budget and time, in a period of 42 shooting days, and 2 months of postproduction. Mahesh Bhatt, impressed by Vishal’s work, often took to twitter to praise Vishal with remarks such as: “our brilliant new director”, etc.
Blood Money released on March 30th, 2012 and was declared a hit in the box office in its 1st week itself, collecting about 11crores nett in week 1.
Vishal then went on to direct 3AM, a supernatural thriller, that dealt with the paranormal and got one to ask themselves the age-old question - is there life beyond death? 3AM, starring Rannvijay Singh and Anindita Nayar went on to be considered by many as a path breaking, new age film, in the Indian horror film genre. The film was shot in 29 days, replica rolex in Mumbai and Goa. The film also stars Salil Acharaya as friend turned (possessed) foe, and Kavin Dave.
With 3am, Vishal made his debut as a producer, co-producing the film, apart from having written and directed it. |
