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Usman Mukhtar had an eventful New Year’s Eve, wrapping up the year with a conversation with CNN on his film Umro Ayyar: A New Beginning and his plans for the future.

Billed as Pakistan’s first superhero fantasy film, Umro Ayyar: A New Beginning released in June and starred Mukhtar, Hamza Ali Abbasi, Sanam Saeed, Faran Tahir and Adnan Siddiqui, among others. The film was a departure from the otherwise staid films gracing theatres in the country.

“I’m a big superhero fan and getting an opportunity to play Umro Ayyar in a live action film in Pakistan was a great honour for me,” Mukhtar said. It was a movie that was four years in the making and finally released last year, he said, adding that they were absolutely blown away by what they saw on the big screen. The stars hadn’t seen the movie prior to the cinema release.

“All of us actors were in the cinema when we saw the film for the first time and it was amazing, an experience like none other.”

As a superhero fan himself, he seemed especially pleased to have made the film for children. “Especially the young kids who don’t have a lot of material to watch coming out of Pakistan, they really enjoyed the film and we’re hoping we work on more sci-fi, more superhero stuff for the global audience,” Mukhtar explained.

When asked whether he saw a strong global market for Umro Ayyar and other fantasy, sci fi films based on South Asian folklore, the actor said there is a lot of material and literature in Pakistan that could be turned into films or comic books. “I think the audience really wants to watch something different coming out of Pakistan,” he reasoned.

Mukhtar said he grew up reading comic books — he’s a huge DC Comics and Superman fan — and collecting comic books, action figures and film memorabilia, so it’s something that interests him a lot. “I want to do a lot for my children, I want my children to be watching a lot of stuff that their dad did,” he explained.

In 2025, he’s not working on another sci-fi/fantasy project, though he believes more of those should come out, instead, he’s playing Allama Iqbal in the upcoming Fatima Jinnah series.

“We’re working on a web series called Fatima Jinnah, based on Fatima Jinnah, the Pakistani stateswoman, politician, philanthropist and sister of Quaid-i-Azam and I’m playing Allama Iqbal, a South Asian islamic philosopher and poet,” he explained, adding that it will release in 2025 and he hopes people will like it.