Bannered under Red Chillies Entertainment (RCE), Shah Rukh Khan’s most ambitious and expensive project till date, Ra.One i.e. Random Access Version One (also referred to as Ra.1) is right on track and the Baadshah is satisfied with the way the hard work and efforts are culminating into the final product. The movie that was in planning for close to two years or more, is SRK’s first attempt in the genre of sci-fi and superheroes, highly stylized film with ample of gizmos and gadgets.
Cast
SRK plays videogame designer-turned-superhero called G.One / Jeevan. “G.One stands for the good one & sustainer of life. To protect life he is ready to put his own [on] the line. The character has what is called solid electricity. So, he can solidify electricity,” Shah Rukh had tweeted during the initial days of shoot.
Kareena Kapoor plays Shah Rukh’s leading lady in the film and a young mother.
Arjun Rampal plays the villain in the movie.
Shahana Goswami plays SRK’s colleague. Her character is pivotal to the film as she helps in taking the story forward by helping SRK’s character.
Tom Wu (Shanghai Knights, Batman Begins Tomb Raider II) a martial arts expert recently joined the cast list for the film.
Among others as part of the cast are Satish Shah and Dilip Tahil.
Crew
– Owing to the magnitude of action and special effects part of the film, an ensemble of Hollywood and Bollywood’s big names have been put together.
Director – Anubhav Sinha (Dus, Tum Bin, Cash).
Story/Screenplay/Dialogues – David Benullo is writing the “superhero part of the collaborative screenplay” supported by Anubhav Sinha, SRK and Mushtaq Sheikh on the other parts. Kanika Dhillon is also one of the screenplay and dialogue writers of Ra.One.
Music – Vishal and Shekhar, Pop singer Akon has already recorded a song for the movie and there is a possibility of him shooting a video for the same.
Art Direction/Sets – Sabu Cyril.
Director of Photography – Nicola Pecorini
Visual effects – While part of the VFX is by the Red Chillies team in Mumbai, Jeff Kleiser (Stargate, the X-Men Trilogy, Fantastic Four) is the VFX supervisor on the film.
T-Series has acquired the music rights of the film.
Where: Shooting commenced around late March 2010, in a picturesque village in Goa called Aldona; using a colonial Portuguese-styled house as the main location. Post that, the schedule continued at the ‘Filmcity’ studios in Mumbai and some parts of the hillstation – Lonavla. Since early July, a major schedule of the film is being shot in some major locations of central London. Hotel Rafayel, situated at Falcon Wharf is the London base for the filming. Recently a principle shoot took place at the Battersea power station, the famous site where an explosion scene was shot for Heath Ledger’s The Dark Knight! Post the London shoot, the crew returns to Mumbai where major parts of VFX will be shot.
Brand Integrations / Associations: The Italian brand Ducatti is a major name associated with the film. The brand has provided top-of-the-line motorcycles to be used in the film. Further, as part of the movies’ marketing plans, SRK plans to launch toy models based on Arjun Rampal’s character. Talks have been initiated with Hamleys and Disney for the same.
In the news:
• All the lead characters looks in the film are under tight wraps. To ensure no leak of pics etc, strict security measure were followed on the sets. All devices had to be surrendered and visitors were accompanied by crewmembers throughout the set. Arjun Rampal had been sporting a bandana to maintain the secrecy of his look for the film.
• For some scenes of the movie, SRK donned a tight fitting, steel blue colored body suit, made of latex like material, having the circuit of microcomputers costing around Rs 1 crore. The suit was specially made in LA and the process of getting in and out of the suit was pretty traumatic that SRK restricted his loo visits so that he wouldn’t have to endure his wardrobe distress.
• The London sets of Ra.One has been getting non-stop celeb activity owing to visits by Lalit Modi, Karan Johar and most recently Saif Ali Khan, who dropped in to visit girlfriend Kareena.
• Moreover, where there is a Khan, there is a Johar. Karan Johar (who was in London on vacation, to meet SRK) landed on the sets and ended up assisting with the emotional bits of the shoot. He has been a regular on the sets and much to the delight of all fans has been tweeting pictures of the stars from the sets.
Technically, Ra.One will be India’s third superhero film, Krrish and Drona being the first two. It will indeed be interesting to see if Ra.One would be as successful as Krrish or will be a bummer at the Box-office like Drona.
Lastly since no conversations are complete without the twitter touch, here are some film related tweets right from the cast/crew’s fingertips.
@iamsrk (Shah Rukh Khan): harness hugging my crotch No crying but eyes water cos of smoke. No wind in my hair but sugar glass. Romantic heroes have more fun I think.
@iamsrk: ready to save the world…ready to fly…there he goes wheezing past the onlookers. It’s a bird..its a plane…no its supercoldman.
@iamsrk: huge blue screen…100 cars….cranes wires…gawd i am making a film beyond my means.will be dancing on the streets to pay for all this.
@iamsrk: why all this…the jumps..the flying…the risks. is it to prove something…no.i do it cos i believe i can fly.u all made me believe it so.
@AnubhavSinha: The sequence that I thought was impossible to film gets over in an hour. So much steel crashed and burnt. Looks awesome.Thanks Team Ra.One.
@AnubhavSinha: Small trivia….. The cost of the shoot today is worth my whole first film.
