The Life of Pi book

Earlier director M. Night Shyamalan, writer Dean Georgaris, and writer-director Jean-Pierre Jeunet were associated with the project, but Ang Lee might be the one to direct the movie version of the wildly successful book. If he does, the director will work with a new screenplay.

The Life of Pi is the story of a young Indian shipwreck survivor, Pi Patel, who finds himself on a life raft with an injured zebra, orangutan, hyena and a Bengal tiger.

Reports say that Irrfan Khan who recently starred in Slumdog Millionaire has been signed up for The Life of Pi. There is no information about what he has been signed up for. I am thinking that if he has been signed up it is likely that he will play some role in Pi’s life in Pondicherry, before the shipwreck.

Irrfan Khan photo

Yann Martel is delighted with the idea of a film adaptation of his book. He has been quoted as saying, “I’ll be delighted if it happens. Ang Lee is a great director and I would happily trust him with adapting Life of Pi.”

The Life of Pi is the winner of the Man Booker Prize for Fiction, in 2002, and has been translated into 40 languages.

Ang Lee is best known for directing movies like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Sense and Sensibility, Hulk, Brokeback Mountain, and Lust, Caution.

He was won two Oscar awards, Best Director for the 2005 Brokeback Mountain and Best Foreign Language Film for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon in 2000.

Ang Lee with his experience in adaptations (Brokeback Mountain, The Ice Storm) and his ability to depict the fantastic with the real, seems to be good choice to direct The Life of Pi.

In 2008, Irrfan Khan won the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture, for Slumdog Millionaire. His recent release was Shahrukh Khan’s Billu, which has not done too well at the box office.

In the past, Irrfan Khan has received critical acclaim for movies like Mira Nair’s The Namesake, Mumbai Meri Jaan, Life in a Metro, A Mighty Heart, Haasil, and Vishal Bharadwaj’s Maqbool.

Deepa will co-produce the movie with husband David Hamilton.

Deepa Mehta will direct Rushdie' Midnight's Children

Salman Rushdie and Deepa Mehta will work on the screenplay, which is likely to run over 600 pages. Midnight’s Children that will go into production in 2010, is likely to star Shabana Azmi, Nandita Das, and Seema Biswas. Azmi has earlier worked with Mehta on the controversial Fire (1998). Nandita Das has worked with Deepa Mehta in both Earth and Fire (1998).

Nandita Das and Shabana Azmi in Fire

Salman Rushdie has said that he would love to cast Shabana Azmi as the grandmother’s character in the film.

Salman Rushdie and Mehta will write the screenplay from mid-March to mid-April 2009.

Midnight’s Children revolves around Saleem Sinai, one of the 1,001 children born between 12 AM and 1 AM on August 15, 1947.

Midnight’s Children won the Booker Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in 1981.

Sir Salman Rushdie

Salman Rushdie has earlier adapted Midnight’s Children for a play and a TV series. The TV series never took off because the Sri Lanka government refused to give the go-ahead to shoot the series.

Deepa Mehta will first film Exclusion, in 2009, and then start production for Midnight’s Children. Exclusion is about the Komagata Maru episode when 300 Indians were denied entry into Canada. Exclusion will star John Abraham, Akshay Kumar, Manisha Koirala, and Seema Biswas.

Midnight’s Children will be filmed in India, though going by Deepa Mehta’s record with shooting problems in India, it may not be easy to do so. While making Water, Mehta had to stop filming due to violent protests. Mehta then secretly shot the movie in Sri Lanka.

The Midnight’s Children project was announced by Rushdie and Mehta in New York at an event organised a day after the annual MIAAC film festival.