When will Shantaram get made ?

I have been hearing about Shantaram: the movie for almost 2 years now. The question is -as so when is it going to be made.It has already been delayed due to the writers strike of late 2007-08 and pre production and scripting is taking way longer than initially expected.

Owing to the book’s immense popularity worldwide, the cinematic adaptation of the novel is a reasonably anticipated and a project with immense potential.

I have surfed the net and lots of stuff that pops up is too old and dates to 08’ and early 09’.According to imdb.com ,Shantaram is till under development ,although there has been no official announcement –from the studio Warner bros or producers about the tentative schedule or release date.

At helm as the director would be Mira Nair who last year made Amelia, the biopic on Amelia Earhart and the Suketu Mehta written story in NewYork,I love you- starring Natalie Portman and Irfan Khan.

The novel Shantaram-itself is so detailed and loaded with information that there would be a problem of plenty for the screenplay writers .What do they chose to include and what to avoid?

Lin’s escape from Australia, his flight to New Zealand, his arrival and antics in India, the plague, the jail torture, the 6 month maharashtrian village stay where he is named ‘Shantaram’, the elaborate philosophical conversations with don Abdul Khader Khan, his brief stint as a Bollywood extra, his chasing of Karla to Goa, Leopold cafe, the friends, Prabhaker, Madame Zhou, Sapna mystery, Afghanistan, the lechers of dingy bylanes, counterfeit money, ingenious passport makers, the Russians and loads more.

Maybe the best way would be to leave some of the thing to the book itself and invent new scenes for the screen.

The cast is going to guarantee an opening. Any Depp movie will, which also includes Mr.Bachchan who will play Abdul Khader Khan. For Depp, even though the next blip on the radar is Pirates of the Caribbean: fountain of youth, he has stated that he is committed to Shantaram. Brad Pitt‘s production company is associated with the project and Depp is the co –producer.

There are sites with threads that criticize Depp’s choice as the hunky escaped Australian convict, but I disagree. You have to keep faith, he will be really good.

I am curious to see them create the Bombay of 80’s.How they are going to return to slightly saner time in an increasingly maddening and crowded city.Mira Nair also has Irfan Khan, Konkona Sen Sharma and possibly Pankaj Kapoor into the project .There is a decent chance of a fairly large number of Indian cast members working in an a list Hollywood production.Vishal Bhardwaj is to score sound track and the shooting will take place in Mumbai ,Afghanistan and New Mexico .When? That remains the question.

Nair will be aware of its Oscar potential and so the timing of the release is important .Late 2011 seems ideal –exactly 3 years after a film based in Bombay swept the Academy awards.

Oscar's best director award

The Oscar nominations for the best director this year at the academy awards have been out for some while now.And this is what I think about the films and their directors and who I think should win ,but not necessarily will win.The players in contention are

"Precious " (Lee Daniels)
"Up in the Air" (Jason Reitman)
"Avatar" (James Cameron)
"The Hurt Locker" (Kathryn Bigelow)
"Inglourious Basterds" (Quentin Tarantino)

Precious that premiered last year at Sundance film festival ,then titled ‘Push’ has always had a buzz around it which also made me see it. The story of a morbidly obese teenager who is raped twice by her mother’s boyfriend. With Oprah Winfrey being one of the high profile executive producers, it has got it fair share of praise and publicity.

The story is grim and the Direction by Lee Daniels good too. But will he have a chance at the Oscars, not much. It’s not that worthy to walk away with the best director award. It will the first entry to be pushed out.

Quentin Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds is simply brilliant. Tarantino made a film that he loved and he didn’t care as to whether the critics would like it or the audience wouldn’t .He didn’t care if the public was up for it or not .If he likes what he has made, there is a pretty good chance that the viewers will too. To write a screenplay version of World War II and the Nazi’s end, it takes some doing and some directing! I loved every minute, every chapter.

Another filmmaker whose films I appreciate is Jason Reitman, who came out with ‘Up in the air’, also nominated for adapted screenplay .The modern recession tale of the corporate firing executive and frequent flying miles accumulator Ryan Bingham. Reitman always humanizes his characters that are normal and we get at ease with their flaws. Anna Kendrick’s scene with George Clooney just after she is dumped by her boyfriend by SMS was really well acted and directed.

As far as products, I personally would put Inglorious Basterds and Up in the air above The Hurt Locker, because I found their last scenes and dialogue to be wonderful. Brad Pitt’s ‘I think this is my best one yet’ and George Clooney’s ‘ that one light shining brighter than the most would be the taillight of my plane’ respectively were beautiful lines to end their respective films.

Jason Reitman’s best is yet to come and he will not win this year, neither will Tarantino. The fight is really between ex- spouses- Kathryn Bigelow; who has a realistic chance of being the first woman to win the best director award and James Cameron.

The Hurt Locker-Bigelow’s gritty tale about a bomb disposal squad stationed in Baghdad, where every other thing could be an explosive is the critic circle’s darling and this year’s sleeper hit. It just takes out the motive behind the war and focuses on the soldiers and their single mindedness to their purpose. To make a wrong choice is to die. There is no room for gore or bloodshed, just the ordeal in the desert and how they cope and come out of it.

But tell me if Pandora was not something really out of this world? Avatar so easy could have sunk to be one of the massive flops of all time, but it didn’t. Cameron’s half decade long in production epic can’t be ignored by the Academy .I run out of superlatives to describe the detail and amount of thought that went behind the blue skinned 10 foot Na’vis , their world, language. Cameron has created something new, entirely revolutionary and made movie watching a never before spectacle, an experience that will always remain with you. And for that, he ever so truly and richly deserves that golden statuette. You just can’t snub that sort of an achievement in filmmaking.