Post by odadune on Dec 5, 2014 13:17:10 GMT
Madagheera was an over the top, swashbuckling reincarnation romance from Tollywood a few years back, starring Ram Cheran Teja and his cute hair and costarring Kajal Aggarwal and the late Srihari. Directed by SS Rajamouli, there was interest in remaking it roundabout 2011-2012, when everybody and their dog in Bollywood was into Rajamouli for thirty seconds (Rowdy Rathore and Son of Sardar were based on films by him, and the Hindi dub of his movie Eega was a big hit). Anurag Kashyap was supposed to produce, Ranveer Singh was supposed to star, then somehow Ranveer was quietly dropped in favor of Ranbir, then the whole project went dormant.
Now it's being produced and directed by Sajid Nadiadwala (who made his debut as a director with Salman's Kick), and Shahid is starring. Ranveer would perhaps have been a better fit for the "street tough" aspects of the modern day character, but Shahid can also do that, and has the cute hair and dancing skills down pat. Either of them are better actors than Ram Cheran was when he made the original, IMO. I have somewhat mixed feelings about the original-I tend to not be entirely onboard with reincarnation stories for religious reasons, and I feel that Rajamouli isn't great at pacing: he's usually making his movies with the intent to get at certain high-concept setpieces, and IMO he's not always great at making the setup for those setpieces interesting. But the parts of Madagheera that everyone remembers are pretty awesome, and SajidN's ability to throw tons and tons of money and tons and tons of popular and/or talented people at projects (he got Chetan Bhagat to play script doctor on Kick, for crying out loud) means that this should at least be visually attractive.
The other two "reincarnating" characters-the heroine and the Srihari role-have not been cast, so far as I know. The former mostly requires an iconically attractive woman who can do silly modern girl and regal Ancient Times princess; I personally would like to see either Sonakshi or Tamannaah take a stab at it but I don't think I'll be that lucky. I can't say too much about the role originated by Srihari without giving away spoilers, but basically half of it is a jovially menacing antagonist who seems less awful than the main villains, and the other half is a jovially bada** comic sidekick. Based on the Kick trailers and reviews, I kind of wonder if Nawazuddin Siddiqui might be up for it-he seemed to be enjoying himself in Kick. At the other end of the spectrum Suneil Shetty is probably the closest thing in terms of screen image to Srihari (affable b-movie action star with decent comic chops) that Bollywood has, aside from the currently jailed Sanjay Dutt.
Edited 6-19-2016 to reflect Shahid's departure from the project.