Bachchan in Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s next
thanks to An Jo..
LINK
Amitabh Bachchan has commenced preparations for Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s next production venture, to be directed by Bejoy Nambiar.
The film also stars Farhan Akhtar, and tells the story of a chess player.
Bachchan says he is enjoying the pre-shooting sessions and thinks it is a great exercise for the entire star cast of the movie.
“Our work on the next film with Vidhu Vinod Chopra, has begun with class-like readings and discussions, on table. It is a wonderful exercise to be able to go through an entire script with the entire cast,” Bachchan posted on his blog.
“Yet have some reserve stored up for the final moment when we shall all be facing the camera, instead of a written and bound script, with that ominous looking producer Vinod, looking down upon us with fierce and hard workman like expressions,” he added.
Bachchan has earlier worked with Chopra in 2007 film Eklavya: The Royal Guard.
This is the first collaboration between the actor and Nambiar, best known for helming Shaitan.
SATYAMSHOT 
September 10, 2014 at 11:24 AM
VVC has wanted to make this film for a number of years. Offbeat sort of subject but sounds interesting.
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September 10, 2014 at 11:33 AM
When will VVC direct? He is one of the laziest directors around. If Scorsese can belt out a movie every couple years, and Eastwood is still going strong at his age, I don’t understand why some of these Bollywood directors are so lazy.
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September 10, 2014 at 11:37 AM
Agreed completely.. a number of Bollywood directors are in his group. And it’s not just the two you’ve mentioned. There are so many others.
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September 10, 2014 at 12:29 PM
I feel it’s the fear of failure after they have gained recognition / success and are perceived geniuses. They start to take themselves too seriously and the perception makes it difficult to make progress.
It happened with Adi Chopra though in all fairness he went into business expansion but why is a person like Hirani doing such few movies. PK will be a good 6 years after 3 Idiots and same goes for people like aamir.
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September 10, 2014 at 1:05 PM
I’d rather Hirani do films every 5 years and dish out MBBS, LRM and 3 Idiots. While others are dishing out crap, at least I can watch these films over and over again.
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September 10, 2014 at 11:52 AM
he would rather make 3i/pk and straightaway pocket 100-200cr nett profit 😉
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September 10, 2014 at 1:16 PM
Actually my comment was not directed towards someone specific but generally as an Indian trait of taking themselves too seriously or too much worry about perceptions which sometimes hinders progress.
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September 10, 2014 at 1:29 PM
Depends. Progress is not about speed. Progress about doing something better than the thing you did before. The only context where progress and speed are the same is a race. And film making can either be a race or a marathon and either can be successful. But possibly a great marathon runner is not quite the best sprinter. Basically you work at the pace that makes you most comfortable and attains the maximum success for you. To me hirani specifically has mastered this. All 3 films successes both commercially and critically. What more do you want?
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September 10, 2014 at 1:56 PM
@ What more do you want?
Of course I don’t fault him as such for anything but my own greed and a case of dil maange more… esp due to dearth of decent commercial directors.
On serious note , no doubt content suffers with speed and bollywood needs content more than speed at this point of time. What I don’t like is curbing spontaneous desires or risk taking in order to achieve perfection. It makes you tight, closed minded – again not directed to Hirani only but towards creative minds
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September 10, 2014 at 2:03 PM
Agree with your last point.
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September 10, 2014 at 12:11 PM
Wasn’t he to direct his movie in H’wood? Few years ago. Broken Horses- was it? Had bought some mansion in LA , moved there with some high mighty ideas of casting Hoffman I think or Hopkins…Don’t remember who exactly, but the project did not materialize.
Amitabh Bachchan seems to be only actor , at present, working on the choicest scripts. In Hindi that is.
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September 10, 2014 at 1:07 PM
yes I think that’s right.
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September 10, 2014 at 2:55 PM
i thought the movie was completed and in post production of some sort..not sure.
The link here does have some stills/videos of the shoot.
http://www.vinodchoprafilms.com/movies/broken-horses
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September 10, 2014 at 1:13 PM
They should avoid market this movie as “Story of chess player” … This gives a complete thanda and boring feel. Last time it was Teen Patti .. Story of mathematician .. and we know well the outcome.
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September 10, 2014 at 1:18 PM
VVC IMO is a very over-rated director. Parinda was a master piece and his first movie Khamoshi was good too but his 1942, Ekalavya , Kareeb etc are not up to the mark. Mission Kashmir had some good moments but overall I think he is just an over rated director who has an ego the size of a football ground.
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September 10, 2014 at 1:23 PM
this is a fair comment.. I don’t find even Parinda to be a masterpiece but it was definitely a very good film.
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September 11, 2014 at 5:39 AM
LOL Satyam. When opinion matches yours it becomes fair? 😀
Normal people just say – I agree (indicating a similarity of thought, not fact).
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September 10, 2014 at 1:28 PM
For me his best is Kareeb … one of most underrated movie. Kareeb had very unique treatment/humour, but at same time was very entertaining.
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September 11, 2014 at 6:13 AM
@ Yakuza — Finally, I find somebody in agreement with my opinion that Kareeb was a good film, with its own quiet humour. I think some films simply don’t catch on with the general public, but appeal to a niche group.
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September 10, 2014 at 1:45 PM
ON the otherhand Nambiar is an interesting director…
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September 10, 2014 at 1:23 PM
true but this sort of film probably has very limited box office prospects to begin with.
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September 10, 2014 at 2:04 PM
Christopher Nolan made The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises, Inception, The Prestige, and the upcoming Interstellar in an 8 year span.
I don’t know what excuses even Bollywood’s best directors have.
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September 10, 2014 at 2:39 PM
Bergman sometimes did more than one film a year and he wasn’t the only one of his eminence to do so. In fairness this is a very contemporary trend in Bollywood. In the making over the last 15 years or less. Because prior to this every director would always do something or the other at all times (assuming he or she could). But one doesn’t have to go too far. In what is still to my mind the greatest such feat in movie history Desai worked on AAA, Dharam-Veer, Chacha Bhatija simultaneously and at a few points there was even an overlap with parvarish. each film had a big cast. Simply stunning!
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September 10, 2014 at 3:08 PM
” In what is still to my mind the greatest such feat in movie history Desai worked on AAA, Dharam-Veer, Chacha Bhatija simultaneously and at a few points there was even an overlap with parvarish. each film had a big cast. Simply stunning!” That was the time when top actors were acting in 10 films at a time. Nothing stunning about it…when you are doing assembly line products…however good they maybe. You can write a Perry Mason or a Wodehouse every year,and they would be very good books. But you cannot write a Crime and Punishment or Ulysses every year.
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September 10, 2014 at 3:38 PM
actually no director from the 70s that I am aware of was doing as many big films at a time let alone with important stars. Also an actor doing 10 films is hardly the same as a director doing the same. I’m sure you know the difference. Nor is it like a big studio with ‘different’ directors producing a lot of stuff. Finally you might consider some of these films ‘assembly line’ but then you also otherwise compare Cocktail and Guru Dutt or find Dostoyevsky in D3. So I’m not sure if I’d really be looking for agreement from you on this issue..
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September 10, 2014 at 4:25 PM
I certainly find an actor, who has to get into character, remember lines and portray varying physical attributes and cannot let an assistant come into his rescue at any time, doing ten films at a time more stunning than a director directing three films at a time, with the help of asst directors, dance directors, fight directors and what have you, doing films where continuity gaffes, lack of locational logic, and a hundred other lapses is not a problem at all .
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September 10, 2014 at 4:46 PM
Utkal:
“That was the time when top actors were acting in 10 films at a time”-
Yes, it doesn’t happen anymore in Hindi cinema, but is very common in Malayalam film industry. One of their top stars Fahadh Faasil had no less than 12 releases last year (yes, not all of them were lead roles – 1 or 2 were supporting parts and 2 were leads in portmanteau films – but even leaving that aside he has done 9-10 solid lead roles in an year and atleast 6 of these are very good films). Mammootty, at this age, has 6-7 releases every year (he has already had 6 this year). So an actor, doing multiple films per year isn’t really that big a deal.
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September 10, 2014 at 6:29 PM
At one point both Lal and Mammootty did vastly more. An astonishing number of releases. But they aren’t ordinary talents. They were often doing very different parts and so forth. It wasn’t like Govinda doing 10 films at a time or whatever! Having said that it is still not like a director working on many different units simultaneously. Admittedly someone doing 10 Shakespearean parts might be a different thing but I haven’t seen those actors in Hindi cinema. Utkal might have! Then again when you start seeing Dostoyevsky in D3 I’m not sure what the debate is even about.
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September 10, 2014 at 7:08 PM
For reference, Lal had 34 movies in 1986 and Mammootty had 35 the same year. This was of course part of the golden age of Malayalam cinema and so many of these movies were true gems and are still highly regarded today.
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September 10, 2014 at 8:02 PM
34 and 35! Wow! That means every week of the year had a Lal or Mammooty release and the majority of the year had both actors release a movie in the same week. That has to be a world record of some sort.
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September 10, 2014 at 6:28 PM
This is probably why you know nothing about direction! You should check out some of Fellini’s movies on this subject! Also the problem is that you’re using a complete caricature to describe those films. The people who were doing that sort of stuff actually weren’t making films like AAA or Parvarish! Now if one thinks there are serious problems of the sort you’re describing in these films I’m afraid you don’t know how to ‘read’ these films.
I am going to be even more blunt. Only in India can one continue to engage in such silly caricatures.
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September 10, 2014 at 9:19 PM
Look forward to this, even though, again, I find Farhan just very boring as an actor.
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September 11, 2014 at 6:15 AM
Something boring about Farhan…agree. I like him, but…
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October 5, 2014 at 6:27 AM
“Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s thriller pits Big B’s amputee grandmaster against an ATS officer played by Farhan Akhtar in a life-changing game of chess.
http://www.timesofindia.com/entertainment/hindi/bollywood/news/Its-like-Vishy-Anand-meeting-Rakesh-Maria/articleshow/44186807.cms
For the first time, Amitabh Bachchan will be confined to a wheelchair through a film. In Bejoy Nambiar’s Do he plays an amputee who loses both his legs in an accident. “He was driving his new sports car too fast. He lost his wife and his legs but is not a sad soul. He is full of life and there’s never a dull moment when he’s around,” explains the film’s producer and scriptwriter Vidhu Vinod Chopra
The maker of films like Parinda, 1942-A Love Story, Mission Kashmir, Parineeta, Eklavya, the Munnabhai series, 3 Idiots and Ferrari Ki Sawaari, Chopra has been working on this script with Abhijat Joshi for the last four years.
Originally titled The Fifth Move, the action thriller revolves around a chess grandmaster and an ATS officer who through a game of chess resolve their life’s issues. “It’s like Viswanathan Anand meeting Rakesh Maria,” says Chopra, admitting that it was a pleasure seeing the first cut because he knew he had got the casting right.
Farhan Akhtar who plays the ATS officer sports a really short haircut while Bachchan’s look was designed by a team flown down from Los Angeles. Before Do took off, they had a week of rehearsals with the cast and crew. “Today, Bejoy calls me up and says he has nothing to do. They come and perform, he claps and the job is done,” Chopra laughs.
Quiz him on his choice of director and Chopra says he liked Bejoy’s work in Shaitan and David, particularly the black-andwhite portion in the latter. “He has a visual sense and has worked with me for a year-and-a-half on the script. Everyday, he’d come and spend several hours with me,” he informs, impressed with Bejoy’s dedication and commitment.
As a writer and director himself, how does he and co-producer Rajkumar Hirani stop themselves from interfering with Bejoy’s work? Chopra recalls visiting the sets of Munnabhai MBBS one day. “Sanjay Dutt would look at me after every shot to ask if it was all right. After that I’ve never gone on the sets of another director nor entertained one on mine,” he says.
He adds that after Bejoy is done with the shooting for the day, he cuts the scenes and Chopra is the first to see it. “I give my suggestions but he’s the boss and decides if he wants to incorporate them,” he says.
When Chopra is away, Hirani currently busy with P.K., will do the same job. “We are two sides of the same coin,” Chopra reasons.
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