vishal bhardwaj's next: rangoon express?

After a whiff of Julia, we're back to "a period drama set in the days of World War II on the Burma-Japan border" [reference hereabouts]. As noted in an anonymous comment to a previous post, that should be the Burma-China border. The working title is Rangoon Express, UTV is producing, and Matthew Robbins is collaborating on the screenplay (Robbins has been named as the collaborator on Julia, so perhaps Julia is Rangoon Express).

And what might the film be about? The two newsitems that discuss the film have varying levels of detail:

Set in the pre-independence era in Burma, 'Rangoon Express' is a story of Indian soldier working for the British army.
{source: Bollyvista}

In an interview Thursday [April 05, 2007], Bhardwaj said: "The film is set in 1943 Burma during the Second World War when Indian soldiers were fighting for the British against Japan. It's a musical love story revolving around an English stuntwoman acting in Indian films of that time." [...] The film will be in English interspersed with Bollywood-style Hindi songs of that era.
{source: The Hollywood Reporter}

There's a decent budget too (by Indian standards):

UTV CEO Ronnie Screwvala said the film's budget "would be in the region of $10 million-$11 million. We have the financing in place, and depending on what kind of international tie-ups we do for marketing, we could consider offering a share to potential partners.

With a conversion rate of Rs. 42.675 for a dollar, that translates to 42.675 to 46.9425 crore rupees. Omkara had a budget in the neighbourhood of 15 crore rupees (some say 20). It's still less than what Dhoom 2 [a sample of its dumbness was presented hereabouts] cost: 66 crore rupees (about 14 million USD).

The two reports differ on the timeline for the film (from execution to presentation):

The film will roll in October [2007] and is expected to release in the first quarter of 2008.
{source: BollyVista}

Shooting is expected to begin around November [2007] and the film is set to be ready for release by April 2008.
{source: The Hollywood Reporter}

Elsewhere, in a recent interview with Subhash K Jha, Vishal discusses his two Shakespeare adaptations, The Blue Umbrella, the aborted Mr. Mehta and Mrs. Singh, the hints of Julius Caesar [all dropped before]. There's also the hint that the third edition in his Bard trilogy could be a comedy: I'll make a trilogy of Shakespeare films. I don't know which and when. But there will be a trilogy for sure... I may adapt a Shakespearean comedy next.. {URL to a syndicated version [courtesy: LL]}