Saturday, March 23, 2019

Dinesh Kamath's column "Movie World: Aamir Khan to come up with Bollywood remake of Hollywood film ‘Forest Gump’" that was published in Newsband



Movie World
Aamir Khan to come up with Bollywood remake of Hollywood film ‘Forest Gump’
By Dinesh Kamath


The Hollywood film Forest Gump will be remade in a typical Bollywood style. It was announce that Indian superstar AamirKhan will star in the Bollywood remake of the film, in the Hindi language. It will be titled Lal Singh Chadha and directed by Advait Chandan, who was behind the actor’s 2017 musical drama Secret Superstar.
Forrest Gump, starring Tom Hanks, is one of the classic films of the last 30 years, a critical and popular favorite that earned more than $300 million worldwide and won six Oscar awards, including one for Best Picture. The movie ‘Forrest Gump’ was by Robert Zemeckis and it was a 1994 film.
The rights have been bought from Paramount. Aamir had always loved Forrest Gump as a script. It is a wonderful story about this character. It is a feel-good film. It is a film for the whole family.
Production will begin in October 2019, and the film is expected to be released in 2020.
Khan recently starred in the historical drama Thugs of Hindostan, which also featured Bollywood icon Amitabh Bachchan and Katrina Kaif. In a career spanning over three decades, Khan has starred in some of Bollywood’s biggest hits, including such recent titles as wrestling drama Dangal, which also set records in China.
There are many Hollywood films which have become Bollywood remakes. 2017’s Saif Ali Khan-starring Chef, based on Jon Favreau’s original, and 2014’s Bang! Bang! toplined by Hrithik Roshan and Kaif, which was an adaptation of the Tom Cruise-Cameron Diaz film Knight and Day are some examples.
Other upcoming Bollywood remakes of Hollywood films include Kizie Aur Manny, which is a take on The Fault in Our Stars, and a planned version of the Keira Knightley-Mark Ruffalo 2014 musical drama Begin Again.
In the original American film, the presidencies of Kennedy and Johnson and the events of Vietnam, Watergate, and other historical landmarks are seen through the perspective of an Alabama man with an IQ of 75. Hanks runs through childhood with his best and only friend Jenny, played by Robin Wright. His mother, played by Sally Field, teaches him the ways of life and leaves him to choose his destiny.
As the famous tagline of the film says, “Life is like a box of chocolates…you never know what you’re gonna get.” The film was based on a 1986 book of the same name, but it focuses on the first 11 chapters of the novel, before skipping to the end of the novel with the founding of Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. and Gump’s meeting the son he had with Jenny, the only woman he ever loved.
Bill Murray, John Travolta, and Chevy Chase all turned down the role of Forrest Gump. Hanks took it without a salary upfront but for percentage points. It’s been estimated that he made at least $40 million from starring in the movie.
Hanks’ performance was widely praised by critics, even the one who found the film too sentimental. Tom Hanks may be the only actor who could have played the role, many agree.
Hanks had made Gump into a person so dignified, so straight-ahead. The performance is a breathtaking balancing act between comedy and sadness, in a story rich in big laughs and quiet truths.
Wright makes a strong impression nonetheless, as do Gary Sinise as a disabled Vietnam vet who becomes Forrest’s business partner, and Mykelti Williamson as Bubba, Forrest’s equally simple-minded platoon mate. It’s Hanks’ movie, though. Looking a tad like Pee-wee Herman in his crew cut, sneakers, and a buttoned-down shirt, Hanks is charming as Gump, heroic in his guilelessness and belief in simple virtues.
Thus Forrest Gump is a 1994 American epic comedy-drama film based on the 1986 novel of the same name by Winston Groom, directed by Robert Zemeckis and written by Eric Roth. The film stars Tom Hanks, Robin Wright, Gary Sinise, Mykelti Williamson, and Sally Field. The story depicts several decades in the life of Forrest Gump (Hanks), a slow-witted but kind-hearted man from Alabama who witnesses and, unwittingly, influences, several defining historical events in the 20th century in the United States.
The film was a massive success at the box office; it became the top-grossing film in North America released that year and earned over US$677 million worldwide during its theatrical run, making it the second highest-grossing film of 1994. The soundtrack sold over 12 million copies. Forrest Gump won the Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor for Hanks, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Visual Effects, and Best Film Editing. It won many other awards and nominations, including Golden Globes, People's Choice Awards, and Young Artist Awards.
Forrest Gump is not stupid. Although his IQ is 75, he sees the world far clearer than most. Through his decent, childlike eyes, we too see things in a less confused and muddled way. In this cheerfully straight-arrow moral tale, Tom Hanks stars as the "wise fool" Forrest Gump and delivers yet another Oscar-level performance.
Raised in the '50s in rural Alabama by a single mother (Sally Field), Forrest, being "different," must fend for himself, struggling against not only perceived expectations but boyhood bullies. He unwittingly finds that he's blessed with a talent — he can run like the wind, which wins him a football scholarship to play for Bear Bryant at the University of Alabama. And there's no stopping him after that.
An uplifting saga about one young boy's earnest and good-natured attempts to overcome his disabilities, Forrest Gump is also a cheeky social satire of the past 40 years of U.S. social-political history.
The film ambles along over a deeper, darker layer: Forrest's love for his childhood girlfriend, Jenny (Robin Wright). An abused child, Jenny's life path is a desperate wander to find solid ground. She falls prey to every social movement and fad of the times; unlike Forrest, whose unwavering strength and sense of right and wrong protect him from being caught up in social slides, Jenny's genuflections reflect her lack of firm values and inner confidence.
To some extent, one could argue that Jenny symbolizes most of us. If any criticism might be leveled at the film, it is that its most heart-wrenching moments are too adeptly skirted, but, then again, that's in keeping with Forrest's strength. Highest praise to Zemeckis, who has reached a higher maturity plane with his gracefully, technically eloquent direction.
Hanks' body language is all-telling. With each strange or perplexing situation, Hanks erupts with the smallest twitch or turn.
So now let us wait and see how the Bollywood remake of this film Forest Gump with Aamir Khan as the leading hero will turn out to be.

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