Bachchan with Puri Jagannath?
LINK
After playing a kid in Paa, Amitabh Bachchan is now set to play the title role of Budda (old man) in a film to be directed by Jagannathan Puri, who had directed the Telugu version of Wanted. Buzz is that Ramu might be the creative producer of the project.
Without dwelling upon the story, Madhu Mantena who will produce the film, says, “Puri was in Mumbai last month. He met Mr Bachchan who loved the idea. Puri is now working on the script.”
November 29, 2009 at 5:34 PM
Last month? Seems Puri was narrating his movie to Amitabh around the same time that Prabhu Devaa was narrating his movie to Abhishek. If all goes well then seems we may indeed see Abhishek and Amitabh working with South Indian directors in massy-masala movies. I think this is indeed good news with potential.
November 29, 2009 at 6:52 PM
I had exactly the same thought. Abhishek has been building these Southern connections for the longest time. Glad to see Bachchan do the same. Of course the latter has worked in Tamil productions in the past.
November 29, 2009 at 5:57 PM
ANGRY OLD MAN IN A MAsala actioner?? Hmmmm!
November 29, 2009 at 6:40 PM
Amitabh indeed would not be able to do real massy action like he used to do because he is 67 years old. So there is indeed limitations. However if this movie came about it could work if tailored made to suit Amitabh’s limitations due to age. Amitabh would be vastly believable in a movie in the vein of Clint Eastwood’s Gran Torino, etc..
November 29, 2009 at 7:50 PM
Sorrrry i can’t open a new topic so i will say it here. A few month earlier, i talked about a movie dealing with the love story of Jawaharlal Nehru and Edwina Mountbatten played by Kate Blanchett.
I found a french article saying that the indian gov censored the script to erase every trace of their “affair”. Even the world “love” have been dismissed totally ! Incredible, it’s a shame ! Not because they are attacking the freedom of speech of the director, but because love is basically the only reason why people would turn up to see the film. Can y’all imagine Blanchett doing nothing if they choose Hrithik to play Nehru ? It’s gonna be a Scifi flick !
(sorry the link is in french)
http://www.rue89.com/2009/10/27/quand-le-gouvernement-indien-censure-lhistoire-damour-de-nehru-123360
November 29, 2009 at 9:24 PM
Here comes an unofficial remake of Gran Torino… albeit with a lot of masala.
November 30, 2009 at 12:21 AM
WOOP WOOP
!
November 30, 2009 at 12:18 AM
Satyam: Just sent you an email…..need your help with something
!
November 30, 2009 at 12:21 AM
Here’s the email..
Im planning on writing a piece for my social Media blog which is to be launched (www.socialwizz.com..still under constructions) (more a case study) how one man BECAME the entire media industry in some ways (i.e when a million negative things were being written about him, words construed etc) he decided to laucnh his own blog and fight back via the blog and in turn became his own living, breathing media. Poeple don’t need to read what H T Times or IndiaFM have got, they can just got to his blog and read. ALso , some of his good habits like updating the blog daily etc (maintenance is key etc).
However I need some historical info and rather than go to the web i’d ask u
In the past, when the “emergency” happened and Bachchan lost favour with the media…WHAT HAPPENED? How long for? and what affects(negative) did it have on Bachchan….?
Leme know if u got any questions…
November 30, 2009 at 8:41 AM
I responded to you but I’ll just put up the response here as well (I’ve of course talked about the media aspect of it at length before):
I’d make a few points somewhat schematically:
1)Bachchan’s angry young man persona was certainly the right one for a country which was going through a great deal of turmoil in the 70s. The Emergency was of course the central event here. In a system that seemed rotten to many he represented a vent for various frustrations.
2)However I am not sure if his box office can be equated entirely with this. Because the angry young man first emerged in ’73 and then just kept going from strength to strength. Also I think that the themes Bachchan’s great films tapped into were far more universal than the specificity of any given situation.
3)Remember his family and he himself were always well-connected to the Gandhis. So he never had a problem in that sense. Also none of his films ever got held up at the censor board for any reason. With Sholay the censors thought the original ending was a problem but this had nothing to do with him.
4)To the extent I can understand this I think the negative media reaction always represented bourgeois discomfort with Bachchan’s ‘politics’. They rightly saw him as subversive of ‘family balues’. They also saw the revolutionary potential in many of his roles. No bourgeois audience is ever happy with any notion of revolution! Bachchan was the hero of the lumpen masses. Over time this became even more pronounced as he started playing the taxi driver or the waiter or the coolie. For these audiences Rajesh Khanna was the darling and they recoded what was essentially a class struggle or political one as Rajesh Khanna v Bachchan.
5)Eventually Bachchan responded to the media. The negativity had been constant anyway, this made it even worse. Of course the media could never really affect him adversely at his peak. So whatever they did they were irrelevant to his box office success. Post-Shahenshah when he became more vulnerable he re-connected with the media who were too happy to oblige since he could still sell more copies than anyone else. But at this point and later the negativity somewhat subsided as they felt it was finally over for him (Illustrated Weekly of India had that notorious ‘Finished’ cover in ’89). He eventually disappeared for 5 years, then got back and till KBC still wasn’t doing too well. The media in the meantime jumped onto the SRK bandwagon. Post KBC everything changed. Then in Mohabbatein again he returned in all his glory and SRK seemed rather diminished in the film. Then there was K3G with a similar juxtaposition where both SRK and Hrithik seemed poorer compared to him. Eventually he started doing a lot of films, many ill-advised.
6)This decade he’s been central to the narrative one way or the other despite a mixed box office at times. He’s been more transcendent than any other younger star. All of the the media could still live with in a sense. But when Abhishek finally became successful that sense of ‘restoration’ disturbed many and all the negativity was then directed toward him. Incidentally the media eventually played up his success as it made for a good story. But they turned after this. And so the cycle of the past has once again been renewed.
7)The blog has indeed been a great tool for Bachchan. It’s importance cannot be underestimated. Now Bachchan can respond every day to each and every slight he feels. He certainly writes as it were his own story. and he has his legions of fans every single day, his base if you will and to have that kind of testimony every single day to his continuing relevance means something. The media certainly knows that no story will go unchallenged. In this sense technology has offered a way out in some ways. Abhishek’s on Facebook at times, now on Twitter. There is a direct contact with the audience which bypasses traditional media to a great degree.
November 30, 2009 at 6:53 AM
I wonder how this name “‘Puri Jaganath”"..”"” Is thish is real name or filmi name?? Because neither the city of ” Puri”"belongs to AP nor “”Lord Jagannath”" have any relevenve in Andhra culture…
December 1, 2009 at 5:00 AM
One more future disaster on its way
December 1, 2009 at 5:05 AM
There is no buzz around for paa and teen pati is gonna release with MNIK on 12 Feb.Lets hope for the best now.
December 2, 2009 at 12:47 AM
Well..its a forgone conclusion that any bacchan movie except “”sarkar”" came with any buzz in recent past…But “”Paa”" definately have some goodwill alongwith it..
But i must say the promotional campaign for this kind of a movie is pretty avg…They came up with a steller cmpaign to start up with and just when the buzz was building up they messed it up…Especially the video where the entire country is dancing like “‘auro”" is a matter of laughing stock in the audince.. They didnt wait for the song to grow among the audince which could have made the above mentioned promo believable…