How to make an official Hollywood clone

These developments prove that Hollywood studios are keeping a hawk’s eye on the proceedings here. Clearly,‘official’ is the way to go. But even if you get the rights,the Indian tadka has to be sprinkled to make it a desi product. We ask WAF director to take us through the process.

Here’s Siddharth Malhotra’s Guide to Getting the Official Remake Right:

WRITE YOUR VERSION FIRST:

I always wanted to make Stepmom in Hindi but I wanted my take on it. I was making another film for Karan as my debut but we were not getting the last 20 minutes of the script. Karan asked me to work on something else and I remembered Stepmom. I told my writer,Venita Coelho,to work on a draft of Stepmom. I didn’t want to make a direct copy of the Hollywood film. My brief to Venita was to keep the soul of Stepmom and the essence of the characters intact but the treatment had to be absolutely fresh. It took Venita about eight months to write the screenplay. Karan and I both liked her draft and then we went about securing the rights of the film.

GET THE PAPERWORK IN ORDER:

Getting the rights is a long process. It’s neither easy nor tough but it’s a process. You got to just hang in there and wait it out. It took us about nine months to get the rights. I think I aged in these nine months. It’s an agonising wait and you have to get the paperwork in order. We couldn’t have done this without Apoorva Mehta,CEO,Dharma Productions. He initiated the dialogue with Sony Pictures and took it upon himself to convince the studio that a newcomer like me can handle this subject and do full justice to a Chris Columbus film.

TWEAK IT,INDIAN STYLE:

I’ve grown up on a staple diet of Raj Kapoor,Guru Dutt,Yash Chopra,Manmohan Desai and Manoj Kumar. I don’t ascribe to the Akira Kurosawa or Federico Fellini school of cinema. I believe in commercial cinema. As an audience,I want a paisa vasool film. My approach to WAF was also very Indian. Unlike the original,WAF takes into account the man’s point of view also. Arjun’s character is shown as a man who has failed as a husband and a father. There are three kids in the film aged 13,10 and 5. The film depicts how they deal with their parents’ divorce and how they come to accept another woman in their father’s life. They learn that sometimes two people cannot live together even if they love each other. Every relationship in the family dynamics is treated with emotions that we Indians connect with. I wasn’t scared of making changes to the original because I wanted to stay true to the script and my conviction.

RESPECT YOUR ACTORS:

I had no trouble handling two strong actresses. In that respect I follow the advice of my gurus,Sooraj R. Barjataya and Karan Johar. Both of them stress on characterisations,like Soorajji says,“Before shooting the film,you should have the kundali of your characters in front of you.” I lived with my characters and script for two years. Actors only get edgy when they feel that the director doesn’t know his characters. In my case both Kareena Kapoor and Kajol had faith in me. Both are such fine artistes. Kareena has portrayed her role with more dignity than Julia Roberts. Kajol took two months before giving her nod and after that she never questioned me. I’m a huge Kajol fan and Kareena is my second cousin. I gave them full respect and they’ve given memorable performances.

ADD THE SONG N’ DANCE:

What’s a Hindi film without a memorable song? I was very keen to have a signature moment in the song n’ dance department. Our Jail house rock is a tribute to Elvis Presley. You can say,this is our Ain’t no mountain high enough! The situation is that the family is at a Karaoke bar in Sydney. The kids tell their mom,Kajol,that Kareena is very cool. So Kajol decides to show the kids that she invented the cool moves. The song takes off from there. Interestingly,even though we got the rights of the original Elvis song,we had to use a new voice since the letter clearly states that except for the melody we can’t use anything resembling Elvis in the song. So we had to work it around. You won’t even see an Elvis poster on the set because it wasn’t allowed. By the way,getting the rights of the Elvis song also was a process! It took us six months for that!