Veerappan ghost is Bollywood angel as distributors surface

‘‘Now I’m being flooded with offers from distributors who had earlier refused to even see the film,’’ says Khosla, who bought the film in 2001 and got Censor clearance by 2003.

The sandalwood smuggler’s recent death ensures that you’ve not seen the last of him.

Director Ram Gopal Varma, whose cinematic romance with the notorious bandit began with the 2000 hit Jungle, is currently hunting for a Veerappan. ‘‘It’s difficult to find someone who’s built like Veerappan and who can act,’’ says the director.

Varma’s Rs 5-crore film about three villagers who make a plan to kill Veerappan was announced six months ago, but its shooting began only earlier this month. It will hit theatres in March.

The film, rechristened Let’s Kill Veerappan, from Let’s Catch Veerappan will be directed by Shimit Amin. ‘‘We’ve changed a few scenes, and included Veerappan’s death in the film,’’ says Varma.

Khosla, who quickly printed publicity stills after Veerappan was killed, says that ‘‘suddenly they have all woken up’’. Not to be outdone by Varma’s rechristened film, Khosla’s now calling his Veerappan: The Original.

‘‘Ours is the original since it was shot after Veerappan okayed the script,’’ he says with a smile.

The ‘original’ is one film that K Vijay Kumar, head of the Special Task Force which recently shot dead Veerappan, wouldn’t like.

In this 1995 hit directed by Ravindranath, Veerappan hoodwinks the police. His sidekick, a lookalike with a fake handlebar moustache gets the bullets, while India’s most wanted criminal vanishes into the dense forests.

Distributor Shri Asht Vinayak Cinevision, (the firm also distributed recent Shah Rukh Khan hit Main Hoon Na), is in the race to buy Veerappan. ‘‘We want to buy this film as it has great potential,’’ confirms Dhaval Jadania, proprietor. ‘‘Theatre owners are excited to show this film.’’

Khosla claims that several television channels want to buy the telecast rights. Now that they’re quoting a ‘‘handsome price’’, Khosla is cleaning up the prints in a lab and introducing Dolby digital.

Veerappan is not the first larger-than-life true story to inspire film-makers.

Ongoing Bollywood projects include a film on Gudiya, the remarried soldier’s widow whose first husband suddenly came back from the ‘dead’ and Shabnam mausi, the story of a eunuch who became a legislator.

Of course, sometimes real to reel takes quite a bit of hard work. Director Mahesh Bhatt, who announced in February that he was making a film on stamp scamster Abdul Karim Telgi, found that the first draft of the script was rather dry.

‘‘We’re not doing a docudrama so we need the personal stuff,’’ says Bhatt who’s now waiting to meet Telgi.

‘‘His lawyer has assured me that he will meet me.’’ And no, Bhatt is not making a film on Veerappan.