A casting coup to beat all others

In what is billed as the biggest announcement in terms of female casting in the movies, Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Katrina Kaif and Alia Bhatt have been brought together for a road trip movie called Jee Le Zara.

The announcement comes exactly 20 years after the release of Dil Chahta Hai on the same theme, directed by Farhan Akhtar. Incidentally, Farhan is returning to direction after ten years with this film, after Don 2 which released in 2011.

“It is a casting coup to get three big stars like Alia, Priyanka and Katrina in the same film. Dil Chahta Hai had set the template for road trip films. Most Imtiaz Ali films, like Jab We Met, Tamaasha and Highway have been road trip movies and Zindagi Milegi Na Dobara set the bar high. So the makers needed a big cast to make this film stand out. It is a good subject and a good vehicle for Farhan to return to direction after a decade,” says film historian Imtiaz Baghdadi.

(Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara was Zoya Akhtar’s second film, and it came out in 2011 too. It was written by Reema Kagti and Farhan Akhtar, and starred Farhan.)
Katrina Kaif, who was the heroine of Zindagi Ne Milegi Dobara, returns to the road trip genre with Jee Le Zara while Alia Bhatt is returning to it after Highway.

Jee Le Zara will be shot next year and is slated for release in 2023. Farhan, Zoya and Reema Kagti are writing the film and producers Ritesh Sidhwani and Farhan have collaborated with Zoya and Reema’s company Tiger Baby Entertainment to produce it.