Sports biopics have been the most favorite subject of Bollywood filmmakers in the last two-three years but looks like now Bollywood is turning it’s focus towards space with not one but four films which are based on space. The Tamil film Tik Tik Tik, is said to be India’s first space film, though Bollywood did have films like Koi Mil Gaya and PK that dealt with spaceships and aliens but not exactly about space.
The latest buzz doing the rounds is about Shah Rukh Khan replacing Aamir Khan in Saare Jahaan Se Achha directed by Mahesh Mathai and written by Anjum Rajabali. There are also reports that Bhumi Pednekar has been signed opposite Shah Rukh in the film, but there has been no official announcement on that so far. Aamir was earlier approached for the film but since he’s busy with another big project; Mahabharat, he said no to the film. The film is based on Rakesh Sharma, the first Indian to go to space. The film was earlier titled Salute. At a recent press conference Aamir announced that he feels sad that he could not do the film because of prior commitments and is glad Shah Rukh has been roped in for the film.
Besides Sare Jahan Se Accha, there is Akshay Kumar’s space film, Mission Mangal which features five females stars along with Akshay and Sharman Joshi. Vidya Balan, Taapsee Pannu, Sonakshi Sinha, Nithya Menen, and Kirti Kulhari come together for the film and according to Akshay, they are the real heroes in this film. Speaking to Hot Friday Talks during an interview, Akshay said, “They are the real heroes. I am supposed to be behind them even though I am producing it. I am very happy to see these five girls, who are very big in their own way, are not bothered that there are five of them coming together.”
Another film based on space that has been in the news is Chanda Mama Door Ke, which was earlier supposed to star Sushant Singh Rajput in the main lead. But there were reports that Sushant had walked out of the film as he too many projects in his kitty. Sushant who was initially very excited about the film had also shared pictures of him training at Nasa but later deleted the pictures from his social media. The film apparently also stars R Madhavan and Nawazuddin Siddiqui. The film will be directed by Sanjay Puran Singh and produced by Viki Rajani, however, there is no news as to who will be replacing Sushant. Some reports also state that the film has been shelved due to the huge budget of the film.
Then there is the Kalpana Chawla Biopic that is in the pipeline. Talks about a film based on Kalpana Chawla’s life have been going on for some years now but no film has been made so far. While there were reports earlier too that Priyanka Chopra would be acting and producing a film on the life of Kalpana under her banner Purple Pebble Pictures along with Viacom18 Motion Pictures, there has been no confirmation or official announcement so far. We had earlier reported that the founder and CEO of Cloud 9 Pictures Pvt Ltd., Meenu Aroraa will be making the biopic on Kalpana and as that Deepika Padukone and Alia Bhatt were being considered for the same.
We say films like Sare Jahan Se Accha, Mission Mangal and Kalpana Chawla definitely need to be made. The world needs to be told about them. What do you say?
