Of remakes and confessions

When you remake a hit film, comparisons obviously arise. The challenge lies in keeping the audience satisfied, says Bommarillu Bhaskar as he begins his conversation. “One thing I can assure you is that Bangalore Naatkal will be a feel good film. In fact, I initially had apprehensions, but my producers were confident and helpful, and believed in me so much — I was able to do exactly as I wished in Tamil,”  Bhaskar says.

While there are many films, ask him why he chose the Fahadh Faasil-Nazriya starrer for remaking it in Tamil, and the filmmaker explains, “The script of the original film was lively and great. I didn’t remake this film for its own sake, but trust me; all the actors had done a fabulous job. I approached Nazriya in the beginning, but she turned down the offer as she was newly married. I could retain only Parvathy, who acted in the original. Many of my Telugu films have been remade by others in various languages but this is the first time I am doing a remake. So, I feel excited and jittery.”

The filmmaker says the biggest challenge was to bring all the top actors together. “We spent a lot of time analysing who would be apt for the characters, and zeroed in on Rana, Arya, Parvathy and Sri Divya. I thought I should make this film a bilingual in the beginning, andonly later  realised it wasn’t possible due to the availability of the dates and actors,” he smiles. Bhaskar had another reason to convince himself to do the remake. “The film reminded me so much of my days in Hyderabad. We did some concrete research and identified what made the film a blockbuster in Malayalam. We made sure that the original essence of the film wouldn’t be lost, even before we began the shooting,” he grins.

What’s next? On a lighter note, he says he would never remake any film in future. “No, it’s not because I fear criticism. But whenever I see people, they ask me, ‘Idhu pazhaya padam maadhri varuma’ (Will this film be like the old ones?) and as a filmmaker, it’s kind of disappointing,” he notes. But Bhaskar  adds that he’s scripting his next film, which will focus more on fantasy. “It’s too early to talk about this, but I’d love to direct Ajith sometime soon,” he signs off.