Sonam Kapoor, Dulquer Salmaan begin prep for screen adaptation of Anuja Chauhan's The Zoya Factor

Sonam Kapoor and Dulquer Salmaan have begun prep for the screen adaptation of Anuja Chauhan’s 2018 novel, The Zoya Factor . The final draft of the script is ready and the film will go on floors in August. Director Abhishek Sharma tells Mumbai Mirror  that Chauhan has been approached to polish the script further and introduce additional dialogues, since she knows the characters inside out.

Dulquer plays Nikhil Khoda, captain of the Indian cricket team and Sonam essays Zoya Singh Solanki, the advertising professional, who goes on to become the lucky charm of the boys. While the rest of the country and players of the team consider Zoya their lucky mascot, Nikhil is sceptical of her. What starts as a cold war turns into a romance soon. Speaking about her character in the film, Sonam tells the publication that she likes playing empowered women on screen and is excited to work with the director. Dulquer, too, share his excitement about the film, which he thinks has been adapted beautifully for the screen.

Sharma says Sonam was his first choice to play the protagonist as she is as jovial as her character in real life. He admits that he hadn’t seen much of Dulquer’s work but was highly impressed after watching certain parts of Bangalore Days and Comrade in America. “The book has many layers, characters and tracks, so it took Neha Rakesh Sharma some time to pen a tight screenplay and Pradhuman Singh to write the dialogues,” he tells Mumbai Mirror .

The director also tells the publication that a few changes have been made to the script. Although the book is set in Delhi, the film will be shot and set in Mumbai in 2011, just before India’s second World Cup win.

The film has been slated to release on 5 April, 2019.