Turning Videshi Into Desi

Adapting from a book seems to be passé, the latest trend is to adapt from a foreign film instead

What’s common between Priceless, Warriors, Alone, Knight And Day, My Girlfriend Is An Agent and The Fault In Our Stars? Besides being popular foreign films, these titles have been snapped up by leading film studios in the country to be remade in Hindi.

And some big names in filmdom are showing a keen interest in these films too. For instance, Priceless, a popular French film will be director Tarun Mansukhani’s outing after his last release Dostana. The film will be backed by Dharma Productions and Disney and, reportedly, is likely to feature Sidharth Malhotra and Anushka Sharma.

Warrior is another Dharma-Disney collaboration, and a remake of the Hollywood hit which starred Tom Hardy, Joel Edgerton and Nick Nolte. Stepping into the shoes of the lead trio will be Akshay Kumar, Sidharth Malhotra and Anil Kapoor.

Disney has also bought rights of the Korean romantic action comedy, My Girlfriend Is An Agent and plans to remake it in Hindi.

Director Bhushan Patel too, who had helmed Ragini MMS 2, is remaking a Thai horror film, Alone, featuring Bipasha Basu in the lead. The film is being produced by Kumar Mangat.

The fact that most foreign studios have collaborated with or acquired Indian film studios are also making these remakes possible. Take for instance, Bang Bang, the official remake of Knight And Day, which starred Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz, will feature Hrithik Roshan and Katrina Kaif in the desi version. The Hollywood film was produced by 20^th Century Fox and now for the Indian version, Fox Star Studios, the Indian arm of the company, has produced it. Earlier this year, Fox had also produced Hansal Mehta’s Citylights, which was a remake of a British-Filipino indie crime drama Metro Manila. And that’s not all. The company has announced their plans to remake the global smash-hit, romantic film, The Fault In Our Stars in Hindi. The makers are currently gearing to adapt the script to suit Bollywood sensibilities.

It might not be a new trend to make Hindi films based on popular foreign movies but official remake is the key word these days. Filmmakers are now treading with caution as some  producers, in the past have burnt their fingers by simply copying films from the West only to have been slapped with a lawsuit by the original content owners. It’s no surprise then that the new breed of producers is playing it safe by acquiring the official rights of these films.

Also, since more and more Indian films are increasing their global footprint by releasing across several screens in many countries, it has become impossible for the producers to hoodwink the audience.

Almost all foreign studios have made a foray into India. This has helped Indian producers get exposed to a larger library of content at their disposal.

The question we are asking industry experts this week is how viable are these films at the Indian box office. Over to them:

Every once in a while comes a special film that goes on to define the emotions of a generation. The Fault In Our Stars resonates with the emotions of today’s youth and has found appeal across audience demographics. We are hugely excited to be adapting the film for Bollywood and can’t wait to get started!

As filmmakers we are always in need of new ideas. So sometimes we have to look elsewhere for story ideas. While earlier most filmmakers would turn to Hollywood, these days directors also look at World Cinema to remake it into Hindi films. Many a times, certain films from a few countries are quite akin to our Indian culture and those have the potential to be successfully remade into Hindi films. Since a lot of corporate studios have come into the Hindi film industry, it’s easier for them to buy the rights of the foreign films. On most occasions it’s their own film that they choose to remake.

However, keeping the budgets in control is vital. Simply taking over a project and pumping money into it merely because it was a hit in some other country, doesn’t mean it will fetch similar revenues in India.

There is always buzz generated among the audience when we announce a film which is a remake. The audience tends to go online and find out about the storyline, how well it had done abroad and so on. So there is always anticipation among the audience about it. I got to know of this film Alone, which was a horror film and was a huge box office hit in Thailand. When I watched the film I realised that the film is very Indian in nature. The emotions showcased in it were similar to ours. I wasted no time and bought the remake rights of the film. The good thing about Asian remakes is that the storylines can be adapted very easily by Indian directors because our cultures are similar. As a producer, it is best to purchase the official rights of the film you want to remake. So that no one comes and stalls your release due to copyright issues closer to the release.

Of late, cinematic boundaries are getting blurred. We are consuming a lot of films as well as churning out a lot more movies every year. At the end of the day it’s all about adapting a film to match our sensibilities. For instance, our film Go Goa Gone was the first zombie film to be made in India. While the zombie genre is quite popular in the West, here it was unheard of. So we adapted the film and made it convincing enough for the Indian audience, thanks to which the film not only got accepted by the critics but also raked in monies at the cinema.

Foreign films used to be remade in the past too but those days filmmakers had a special term for it. They would call it ‘inspiration’. These days it is not easy to get away with such terms and so we have to buy the legal rights of the films. Plagiarism is dealt with very strictly abroad and those rules are now being followed in India too.  Despite the fact that Hollywood has applied stringent rules on plagiarism, films from Korea, Japan and China are still markets from where a lot of illegal remake ideas are cropping up.