Classic English literature has proven to be a good fit with popular Indian filmmaking. Vishal Bhardwaj’s Maqbool and Omkara were both based on Shakespeare plays. Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility was successfully adapted in a Tamil film Kandukondain Kandukondain and her Emma is being remade as Aisha, starring Sonam Kapoor. One segment of the genre that hasn’t received much attention is that of the fantasy story.
While last year’s Drona certainly used elements of classic English fantasy stories, such as Harry Potter, the result was a jumbled mess of myths and the film itself was poorly received. Aiming more for Return of the King than Return of Drona, Shashanka Ghosh, director of Quickgun Murugan wants to adapt Lewis Carroll’s beloved fantastical story Alice in Wonderland for the big screen!
The title character is to go from “Alice” to “Alisha” and her age will be upped from 6 to something more like 26, if the rumors are true. Actresses Katrina Kaif, Sonam Kapoor, and Soha Ali Khan are said to be under consideration.
Alice in Wonderland is the story of a young girl – the titular Alice – who chases a mysterious rabbit down a rabbit hole and finds herself in a strange world populated by talking dormice, murderous queens, and tea parties that never end. A lot of the humor and wit in the original lay in the word play and logic puzzles Carroll excelled at, so it will be interesting to see how Ghosh translates this to the Hindi vernacular.
If Aladin does as well as is anticipated by industry watchers, now might just be the right time to get a head start on the next big fantasy film!
