New Delhi: Now, Bollywood wants to bend it like Beckham! Well, with the World Cup fever slowly but surely taking the entire nation into its grip, Bollywood is also getting into the football frenzy.
And so, as the countdown begins for a month-long football extravaganza in Germany, Bollywood is hastily gearing up to offer a rich fare with football as the central theme.
Heading for production is choreographer-turned-director Ahmed Khan's Yahan Ke Hum Sikanadar, where actor Nana Patekar will play a football coach to a host of stars including, Bobby Deol, Sohail Khan, Vivek Oberoi, Suneil Shetty, Arjun Rampal and Aftab Shivadasani.
”I have been planning this film on football since the last World Cup. It's been four years now. Every time we decide to do the film, all the stars and my friends say, ‘ok let's do it’. But I never got the chance as I made Lucky and Fool and Final in between,” filmmaker Ahmed Khan told CNBC-TV18.
"But now that the heat is on and also since the time has come, we should do this film," he added.
While Khan plans to shoot parts of the movie in India and abroad, he may also consult Indian soccer star Bhaichung Bhutia to add that extra bit of sporty touch to the film.
Another football flick that is set to go into production soon is filmmaker Vivek Agnihotri's Chocolate, which will be produced by UTV. The USP of the film is actor Saif Ali Khan who is expected to play the role of the lead character.
Agnihotri plans to shoot key sequences of his film in Germany during the World Cup itself, which could prove to be another attention-grabber for the movie.
Justifying his choice of the theme in Chocolate, Agnihotri told CNBC-TV18: “Football is like a religion worldwide, and the World Cup is the most watched tournament. So it makes sense to use this sport as a backdrop in any film that chronicles the life and triumphs of its hero.”
"It's not a film about football, it's not a film on football. It just happens that football is the background of the film. It's the backdrop because football is considered a religion worldwide and the most viewed game. There are lots of things that you can juxtapose in life with football,” Agnihotri added.
The theme of the sport mingled with the triumph of human spirit has always gone down well with the Indian audience in the past if one were to judge from the success of movies like Jo Jita Wahi Sikandar, Iqbal, Bend it Like Beckham and Lagaan at the box-office.
Football apart, one will also soon be watching Shahrukh Khan playing coach to a girls' hockey team in director Shimit Amin's Chak De. So, the tagline for this season in Bollywood should be ‘play on’.
Comments
0 comment