It took Ektaa R Kapoor’s intervention to reunite filmmaker Priyadarshan and Akshay Kumar after 16 years. Despite collaborating on six films earlier, the duo hadn’t worked together since Khatta Meetha (2010). That changed when Kapoor approached them with the script of Bhooth Bangla, which releases next month. The script “excited both of us”, shares Priyadarshan, adding that the actor had suggested Kapoor approach him to direct the project.
Priyadarshan says he took the story from the writer but developed his “own screenplay”. Bhooth Bangla draws heavily from “Indian folklore and mythology like the English werewolf. Soul-switching, controlling souls, and black magic is the core of the film. [The idea] — tele-transportation, where one soul inhabits the body of another human [is significant] even in the Bible and Indian philosophy. It is funny because I am a psychology student and I don’t believe in ghosts,” laughs the director. He adds that the film unfolds from the perspective of a non-believer who suddenly encounters a soul.
Akshay Kumar in ‘Bhooth Bangla’. Pics/PTI, Instagram, AFP
Unfazed by comparisons with the Bhool Bhulaiyaa franchise, Priyadarshan insists that the Kumar, Wamiqa Gabbi, and Tabu-starrer is “being made on a grander scale.” He adds, “People will smile and then the eeriness will creep in. The climax is one of the biggest ends ever shot on a huge canvas.”
The director reveals that Tabu — with whom this horror-comedy marks his fifth collaboration — “looks as beautiful in it as she did in Virasat [1997]. Without Tabu’s character, there’s no logic in the story.” He recalls that the actor was equally excited to reunite and work with him again.
Priyadarshan; (right) Ekta Kpoor (L) and Wamiqa Gabbi
However, it is Rajpal Yadav’s comic timing that the filmmaker cannot stop praising. “He is hilarious in the film and a character you will remember,” he notes, adding that while he has no plans to turn Bhooth Bangla into a franchise, “Maybe, Ektaa can take it forward.”
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Akshay Kumar and Priyadarshan’s movies together
Tabu and Priyadarshan’s collaborations
`Virasat`
1996: ‘Kaalapani’
1997: ‘Virasat’
2000: ‘Hera Pheri’
2000: ‘Snegithiye’
