Buoyed by cheaper production costs, the sheer exotic flavour of our country made popular by the success of Slumdog Millionaire and the like and the popularity of books based out of India, Hollywood is now looking East to shoot its films. Coming up: Life of Pi, Midnight's Children and Anubhav Sinha-Paul Schrader's Xtreme City. Jai ho it is

Loved Yann Martel's book The Life of Pi? You'll find the movie delightful and familiar too -- Ang Lee, of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and Brokeback Mountain fame, will soon be in Pondicherry to shoot his film adaptation of the Booker prize-winning book.


Illustration/Jishu Dev Malakar

He's not alone. Yet another Booker prize-winning novel, Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children, that dishes out a gripping tale of events before and after the partition of India, has caught the fancy of Canada-based director Deepa Mehta, who will be in Kashmir to shoot the film soon. This, despite her bad experience with Hindi fundamentalists who forced her to abandon the shoot of Water in Varanasi, ten years ago.

Danny Boyle too is reportedly set to make another India-themed film based on Suketu Mehta's Maximum City, which is another storyline depicting Mumbai with all its flaws and glory. It gets better.

Currently awaiting the release of the graphic-heavy, Shah Rukh Khan starrer sci-fi film Ra.One, director Anubhav Sinha has teamed up with respected Hollywood writer-director Paul Schrader (American Gigolo, Adam Resurrected) to script his ambitious next film, Xtreme City. Though the script is still being finalised, Schrader has already visited areas like Sion, Koliwada and Dharavi for developing the story of this cross cultural film.

Dev Patel in a still from Slumdog Millionaire, with Mumbai as a backdrop

Dev 'Slumdog' Patel recently concluded the shoot of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, in Rajasthan. Helmed by John Madden, starring respected actors such as Bill Nighy, Maggie Smith, Judi Dench and Tom Wilkinson, the film's story is set in Bengaluru and centres on the residents of an elderly home.

Call it the Slumdog Millionaire effect or a by-product of our booming economy, but of late, India seems to have decisively grabbed Hollywood's attention.

Desi, a rage with videshi
Julia Roberts' recent $80 million grossing Eat Pray Love, which depicted a writer gaining spiritual succour in India, and Jennifer Lynch's Hisss are just two such examples.

We now also take in our stride visits from Hollywood A-listers. Gerard Butler and John Travolta dropped in for personal visits last year. Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie were here while Jolie shot for A Mighty Heart in Pune in 2006.

And who can forget Mallika Sherawat's blink-and-you'll-miss-it appearance in Jackie Chan-starrer The Myth, for which they shot in Hampi, Karnataka?

"The West needs to explore fresh horizons and India is the flavour of the times; the new frontier!" enthuses Amitabh Bachchan while remarking on the changing scenario that has put India on western cinema's radar. The actor observes: "When a country does well economically, everything about it gets attention - its food, its music, its clothes, its culture, its politics and its films. Ever since the opening up of the economy by the Government, there has been a huge interest in everything Indian. It is but natural that creative interest shall also be prime."

'Book'ed by Hollywood
In recent years, India-based novels have made a mark the world over; and international filmmakers have shown an urge to translate these stories from paperbacks into film reels. Thanks to Danny Boyle's Oscar success with Slumdog Millionaire (based on Vikas Swarup's Q&A), Mumbai's throbbing underbelly grabbed international
attention.

Though Mira Nair's much awaited Shantaram, based on Gregory David Roberts's bestseller of the same name, starring Amitabh Bachchan, has been shelved for all practical purposes, the Salaam Bombay director will be back in Delhi, her home town, to shoot with a Pakistani actor for her adaptation of The Reluctant Fundamentalist, set in Lahore. Explains Nair, "Spiritually and architecturally, Delhi is akin to Lahore. But I'll be shooting in Lahore for 10 days as well. Then, four weeks in New York and four days in Chile. We start shooting in March."

Martel's Life Of Pi has been transformed into a screenplay by Lee, and the protagonist of this fantasy-
adventure film is a young boy from Pondicherry who is stranded for 227 days on the sea after having been caught in a shipwreck. And this is no lip service -- Lee also visited India last year for location scouting.

Bond with India goes back in time
Although Hollywood made sporadic attempts to have an India connect even earlier -- James Bond's 1983 spy thriller Octopussy was extensively shot at the famous Monsoon Palace in Udaipur -- it has became more pronounced, of late.

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