 Filmmaker Mira Nair will be directing both Johnny Depp and Amithab Bachchan in her next film: Shantaram.
The script is being written by Eric Roth (Forrest Gump, Munich) and production is likely to begin as soon as this fall, with a possible 2008 release.
Shantaram is an almost auto-biographical. The author escapes from an Australian maximum-security prison and finds meaning as a doctor treating the destitute in the slums of Bombay, before becoming deeply involved in the Bombay underworld. The book works at multiple levels - as a desperate man’s struggle to escape his past; as an impression of Bombay from the perpective of a foreigner who came here with nothing and decided to make a life here; and, as a doomed-from-the-beginning love story between him and Karla.
Bachchan Senior will play Kaderbhai, a benign gangster in Mumbai who becomes Johnny Depp's mentor and surrogate-father.
He will share most of his screen space in Nair's film with Depp, who took the role coveted by many of Hollywood's stars including Russell Crowe.
Nair will be next in theaters on March 9 with The Namesake, based on the novel by Jhumpa Lahiri.
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