{"id":8625,"date":"2011-05-01T05:05:11","date_gmt":"2011-05-01T05:05:11","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2011-05-01T05:05:11","modified_gmt":"2011-05-01T05:05:11","slug":"Shekhar-Kapur-s-Big-Plan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/?p=8625","title":{"rendered":"Shekhar Kapur\u2019s Big Plan"},"content":{"rendered":"

Shekhar Kapur is probably best known for directing the biopic \u201cElizabeth,\u201d which garnered numerous Oscar-award nominations in 1999. But his latest project, a science-fiction movie called \u201cPaani,\u201d is generating lots of preproduction buzz. That\u2019s impressive, given that he hasn\u2019t cast a single role yet. The love story, set in a futuristic dystopian city in which the rich and poor are divided by their access to water, is thick with messages about the environment, poverty and privatization. The film, tipped to be shot mostly in 3-D and backed by an A.R. Rahman score (he won an Oscar for the score of \u201cSlumdog Millionaire\u201d), has been the subject of speculation in the cinematic press\u2014most of it miscategory_ided, according to Mr. Kapur\u2014about which actor will headline the feature.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Mr. Kapur and Danny Boyle of \u201cSlumdog Millionaire\u201d fame will co-produce the film, which is expected to hit cinemas by December 2012, and the pair have secured a budget of about US$35 million. Of course, the director says a film like this could call for a budget more than four times that amount, but he\u2019s got a strategy to make the movie for a lot less, combining time-tested and radically new ideas: He plans to shoot in India and Singapore, for instance, to keep costs down, and to use the Internet as a tool to spread the film.<\/p>\n

Shekhar Kapoor talks about Paani at Cannes Festival<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n