rising welcome to the jungle It was as ambitious on screen as it was behind the scenes. Director Ahmed Khan has revealed that managing the film’s huge crew meant coordinating around 900 people on the sets, arranging parking for 50 vanity vans and handling 250 cars every day.

talking to Hollywood Reporter IndiaKhan talked about the logistical challenges of directing a film featuring 34 mainstream actors in the lead roles. While audiences will see a cast full of familiar faces, he said the real scale of the production is behind the camera.

He said, “When audiences watch the film, they will see only 34 characters on screen. But when you look at what happens behind the scenes, you realize that those characters are just the tip of the iceberg. Imagine shooting on this scale.”

Explaining the numbers, Khan said that each actor had a team of around five people.

“But here’s the real math: Beyond the main cast, you have their crew — usually about five people per star. So, if you count 30 actors and their immediate teams, you’re looking at 150 people on the actors’ side alone,” he said.

The production also included a 200-man crew, stunt teams, horse handlers and 150 to 200 background dancers.

Khan said, “So some days, I was managing between 700 to 900 people on the set.” “Managing our set was less like a traditional film shoot and more like organizing a giant music festival every day.”

Finding a space large enough to accommodate everyone proved to be another major hurdle.

He said, “Imagine setting up a shoot of this scale. We didn’t just need one ground; we had to find two huge adjacent grounds because we needed space to park 50 vanity vans.”

Khan said the production also required separate holding areas for background actors and cabins for the main unit.

“Then consider the commute. Actors come in their own cars, technicians in their own cars, plus separate vehicles for the make-up team, hair stylists and personal staff. We were dealing with 200 to 250 cars coming daily,” he said.

Coordinating the schedule of such a large group was another challenge. Khan recalled that he had made a huge chart in his office with photographs of each actor to keep track of their availability.

He said, “The first thing I did in my office was ask my team to bring me a big chart board. I asked them to pin pictures of every single actor. It couldn’t just be in my mind; it had to be in front of my eyes every day to remind me how many people would be on the set.”

Describing the scheduling process as a “puzzle”, Khan said that the team carefully determined each actor’s dates before planning the shoot.

He said, “Picking together everyone’s schedules – even trying to lock down five days for one actor and eight days for another – was a puzzle. We carefully collected everyone’s dates and structured the scenes accordingly.”

Khan said that despite the scale of the production, the shooting went smoothly, with no ego clashes between the cast.

He said, “We really had a wonderful time shooting the film. Of course, it took a lot of hard work getting so many people together in the scorching heat, managing tight deadlines, sorting out dates, setting up camera frames and setting up physical sets.”

welcome to the jungleThe film, which is currently running in theatres, stars Akshay Kumar, Raveena Tandon, Sunil Shetty, Disha Patani, Jackie Shroff, Krishna Abhishek, Shreyas Talpade, Tusshar Kapoor, Paresh Rawal, Arshad Warsi, Farida Jalal and Lara Dutta.