Bebo, Kat... who's the Hollywood bride

A leading Hollywood studio is looking at remaking one of its popular films of 2009 in Hindi, for which it is taking a Bollywood producer’s help, and in which top actresses like Kareena Kapoor, Katrina Kaif, Priyanka Chopra, Deepika Padukone, Asin and Sonam Kapoor are being considered for the two leading roles.

The Hollywood film under consideration is the romantic comedy of this year — Bride Wars, starring Anne Hathaway and Kate Hudson. In its official Bollywood remake, the film will be one big fat Punjabi wedding with plenty of colour, song and dance, drama, fireworks, the whole nine yards.

Shrishti Behl — director Goldie’s sister, who produced Drona last year, is the Bollywood filmmaker contacted to work on this project. Confirming her participation, Shristi said, “The days of plagiarism are over. Official remakes are the way to go. And Bride Wars lends itself beautifully to an Indian adaptation.”

That it does, but there is likely to be a war among the six top contenders for the two roles in this film. The Hollywood studio, unmindful of the fact that these are the biggest names in Bollywood, is going to conduct a test look to pick their two actresses. Its worldwide production head Stanford Pinatch, talking to BT, said, “We’re trying to produce local-language films all over the world. We’re using the synergy between our distribution operations in all of these territories and tying up with the local production division. There is a shift in the market towards local content. It validates what we’re trying to achieve with these projects.”

Bride Wars, a regular chick flick if there was one, is about a good friendship between two women that goes dangerously bad. And, it will be interesting to see if real life good friends in Bollywood team up for the Hindi remake or the permutations and combinations throw up other alternatives.

The twosomes that come to mind are Katrina and Kareena; Priyanka and Kareena (Shahid Kapoor’s past and present loves, respectively); Asin and Katrina (Salman’s lady love and, well, his co-star who’s currently linked with him); and, Sonam and Deepika (in whose life the common factor is Ranbir Kapoor).

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