While there have been many remakes of South films in Bollywood recently, Mumbai-based entertainment biggy Endemol India wants to remake Vidya Balan’s nail-biting thriller Kahaani in Tamil and Telugu. For this, the company has roped in Tollywood director Sekhar Kammula.
And though this will be the first Tamil film for the Life is Beautiful filmmaker, Sekhar seems to be more excited about presenting the “story to the Telugu audiences”.
“I am really excited about this project. I can’t wait to start work on the movie and tweak it to suit Telugu sensibilities,” he says speaking to us from Mumbai, where he would be meeting his new team for the pre-production work.
“I took up Kahaani because it suits me on three different levels. One, I have always been inclined towards women-centric roles. Two, the setting of the city of Hyderabad will be very close to the original city of Kolkata. And three, thrillers have always been on my mind,” says the director.
The project is still in the nascent stage; neither is the cast set nor the story-line. Of course, the USP of Kahaani is its ending, which everyone knows by now.
So, how is his film going to be different? “We are reworking the script. Let it (changes) be a mystery,” he says, without divulging details. He, however, insists that due respect will be given to the original makers of the film. So don’t expect too many changes, he adds.
About the current trend of remakes, Shekhar says, “Kahaani was a good story. And, I am inspired to present it to the Telugu audience,” he says.
About Mumbai-based companies investing down South, he says,“It is a welcome trend. Bollywood and corporates investing in Tollywood would help some of the budding filmmakers. We wouldn’t say no if Hollywood is interested in investing, would we?”