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Ang Lee Looking To Bollywood For Life Of Pi Cast

With various directors, including Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Alfonso Cuaron and even M. Night Shyamalan trying their hands at adapting Yann Martel’s beloved novel, Life Of Pi, Ang Lee (The Ice Storm, Ride With The Devil) has not only seemed to crack it, but it appears it may be rolling right along to production.

Times of India is reporting that Lee is looking to Bollywood to cast the film, and is looking at Sushant Singh and Sonu Sood to fill the role of the lead character’s father, while Tabu is rumored to be the character’s mother.   Pi Pitel, the novel’s lead, is set to be played by Suraj Singh.

Lee will be joined creatively by writer David Magee, and his DP Claugio Miranda, and personally, this is exactly the type of film I think Ang Lee should be making.   Yes, I’m not quite a fan of the fact that he’ll be using 3D to shoot this relatively intimate drama (yes, I know the character has zebras, hyenas and other animals).   That all said, I’m massively interested in checking out what he can exactly do with this material, and this type of cast definitely adds a lot to that interest.

Here’s the novel’s synopsis:

The precocious son of a zookeeper, 16-year-old Pi Patel is raised in Pondicherry, India, where he tries on various faiths for size, attracting ‘religions the way a dog attracts fleas.’ Planning a move to Canada, his father packs up the family and their menagerie and they hitch a ride on an enormous freighter. After a harrowing shipwreck, Pi finds himself adrift in the Pacific Ocean, trapped on a 26-foot lifeboat with a wounded zebra, a spotted hyena, a seasick orangutan, and a 450-pound Bengal tiger named Richard Parker’¦ After much gore and infighting, Pi and Richard Parker remain the boat’s sole passengers, drifting for 227 days through shark-infested waters while fighting hunger, the elements, and an overactive imagination. In rich, hallucinatory passages, Pi recounts the harrowing journey as the days blur together, elegantly cataloging the endless passage of time and his struggles to survive.

What do you think?

Source: Times Of India

Joshua Brunsting

Josh is a critic, a member of the Online Film Critics Society, a wrestling nerd, a hip-hop head, a father, a cinephile and a man looking to make his stamp on the world, one word at a time.

1 comment

  • I am VERY MUCH looking forward to this. It was such a great novel, and I have always thought that a great director could do great things with it. I was somewhat disheartened when Jeunet and Shyamalan were being attached, but those dark days are over now: Ang Lee is perfect.

    Also, Tabu!!!