'Skyfire' was waiting to be adapted: Author Raman on Zee5 series

Aroon Raman, whose book "Skyfire" has been adapted into a sci-fi thriller series on Zee5, says with weather weaponisation as a novel and an exciting theme, it was waiting to be made into a film.

"Skyfire", starring Prateik Babbar, Sonal Chauhan, Jisshu Sengupta, Jatin Goswami and Shataf Figar, began streaming on Zee5 from May 22.

The story is set in May 2012 when India is hit by a series of freak weather disturbances and startling epidemics that threaten to bring the country to its knees. At the same time, children are disappearing from the slums in the capital and nobody seems to care.

Stumbling upon these strange and seemingly unrelated incidents, journalist Chandrasekhar, historian Meenakshi Pirzada and intelligence operative Syed Ali Hassan start upon a trail that leads them into the drawing rooms of Delhi's glittering high society before reaching a terrifying climax in Bhutan, where they come face-to-face with a force of unspeakable power and evil.

"The plot and the special effects possibilities were main attractions and prompted Zee5 to approach me. Once I sold the film rights, however, this time around I did not have anything to do with the film adaptation due to my own time constraints at the present time," says Raman.

He says he knew screenplay writer Suresh Nair and with the director and cast also "solid", he was happy to leave it to the production house.

"It is possible that in any new book adaptation, I will be more involved! In this sense, the writer has to be prepared to 'let go' of the novel and be comfortable with the fact that the film adaptation might be quite different from the book," Raman says.

The novel "Skyfire" was published by Pan Macmillan.