Bollywood's space extravaganza

The Indian film industry’s growing tryst with space movies is going above and beyond the sky. One, we have heard of Akshay Kumar and Vidya Balan starrer space odyssey on India’s Mars Orbit Mission called Mission Mangal produced by R Balki. The film also stars Sharman Joshi, Kirti Kulhari, Taapsee Pannu, Sonakshi Sinha and Nithya Menon from the south.

Second in line is Mahesh Mathai and Siddharth Roy Kapur’s film on astronaut Rakesh Sharma’s life called Saare Jahaan Se Achcha (initially titled Salute). Initially, Aamir Khan was roped in for the film along with Priyanka Chopra, but after he opted out PeeCee followed the suit. Then Shah Rukh Khan has been roped in to do the film, but the actor wants Zero to release first and then plan his life and career ahead.

While Mission Mangal has Akshay producing the film jointly with Fox Star Studios and Cape Of Good Films, the film is being directed by Jagan Shakti who has assisted R Balki, Gauri Shinde and AR Murugadoss in films like Cheeni Kum, Padman, Holiday, Thuppakki and Shamitabh.

The shoot for the film will commence in mid-November,  has a release date and will be the first Bollywood film on space in recent time to hit the screens.

“The film is a multi-starrer and has a lot of important characters in it. It is also a film laden with special effects because all the space sequences in the film will be VFX driven. The makers are not announcing any dates at the moment because not only do they have to match star dates for the film, but the learning from other films with VFX has made them announce the date as August 15, 2019,” says a trade source that pegs the film’s budget at around Rs 150 crore. This film will be Akshay Kumar’s most expensive film till date.

As for Saare Jahaan Se Achcha, the film which marks India’s first mission into space, is budgeted at around close to Rs 200 crore and may well cross the budget of Zero, touted to be Shah Rukh Khan’s most expensive film till date.

Long ago National Award-winning director of Lahore, Sanjay Puran Singh Chauhan wanted to make India’s first space odyssey film Chanda Mama Door Ke and had already established contact with several leading luminaries who had been to space and moon as well. However, despite having actors like Sushant Singh Raput, Nawazuddin Siddiqui and R Madhavan the film has been grounded for technical reasons. The film is budgeted at Rs 80 crore.

— Sanskriti Media