Magadheera remake in Hindi

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Geeta Arts in talks with Bollywood stars Hrithik, Aamir for the lead role. Hyderabad-based production house Geeta Arts, maker of Bollywood blockbuster ‘Ghajini’ starring Aamir Khan, is planning to remake its latest Telugu movie – Magadheera – in Hindi.


Confirming the development, Allu Sirish, executive producer of Magadheera, told Business Standard that, “Keeping in view the potential of the multiplex-driven Hindi film market, we are planning to remake this Telugu money spinner in Hindi with an estimated budget of Rs 45 crore. We are currently in talks with the league of top eight actors in Bollywood, including Hrithik Roshan and Aamir Khan, for the role of the protagonist in this sword and sandal genre film.” Sirish, however, declined to comment on when the Hindi version will go to sets.

Magadheera, a film made on the theme of reincarnation, which begins 400 years ago with a love story between a princess and a warrior and ends in the contemporary world, has set an all-time box-office (BO) record down south, grossing nearly Rs 80 crore worldwide (Rs 65 crore gross collection including Rs 55 crore producer/distributor share in Andhra Pradesh alone). The film, made with a budget of Rs 42 crore, was released on July 31, 2009, with 500 prints and in 1,250 screens across the world.

The earlier record was held by Rajnikant-starrer ‘Sivaji’, which grossed Rs 65 crore in Tamil Nadu (producer/distributor share of Rs 40 crore). In Hindi, Ghajini holds the all-time record with Rs 200 crore worldwide gross collections with the producer/distributor share being 40 crore, breaking the previous BO record of Rs 70 crore (producer/distributor share Rs 45 crore) by Sunny Deol’s ‘Gadar’.

Sirish said the production house, had set up a 24-member team to tackle the physical form of piracy, besides roping in five software engineers and ethical hackers to tackle Internet piracy. “We are now in the process of nailing some of the pirates of the Internet,” he said.

“Lavishness, huge star cast including Tollywood megastar and Prajarajyam Party founder Chiranjeevi’s son Ramcharan Teja and Hollywood-style graphics in Magadheera unlocked the market potential and brought back the old school glory of the film industry. We are now in the process of dubbing this movie in Tamil with plans to reshoot some sequences with the local star cast and release it by this year end,” said the 23-year-old, who is set to take the reins of Geeta Arts from his father Allu Aravind, producer, next year.

On Geeta Arts’ future projects, which has produced 29 films till date including Prathibandh, Aaj Ka Gunda Raj, Gentleman and Ghajini in Hindi, Sirish said the production house would produce another sword and sandal movie titled ‘Badrinath’ with his elder brother Allu Arjun. “The film, with an estimated budget of Rs 35 crore, will be directed by VV Vinayak and will go on floor from February 2011,” he added.