Hindi
Vasan Bala’s ‘Peddlers’ is India’s official entry at Cannes
MUMBAI: Vasan Bala’s upcoming Hindi crime thriller ‘Peddlers‘ has been chosen to represent India officially at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival as part of International Critics‘ Week.
The film will also compete in the Camera d‘Or section.
Founded in 1962, Cannes Critics’ Week is the oldest parallel competitive section of the Cannes Film Festival. This is a parallel section at the Cannes Film Festival that discovered filmmakers like Wong Kar Wai and Bernardo Bertolucci among others.
Peddlers is a character-driven thriller about two parallel love stories – one about a cop and his married neighbour and the other of a girl on a mission and an aimless guy.
The film is about love, loss of innocence and coming of age.
Peddlers stars Gulshan Devaiah, Siddharth Menon, Kriti Malhotra and Nimrat Kaur, among others.
Eros International Media Ltd has collaborated with Anurag Kashyap Films Pvt Ltd (AKFPL) and Sikhya Entertainment for the film.
Hindi
Jio Studios, Sanjay Dutt team up to revive Khal Nayak
Rights acquired for new version, format under wraps as remake plans take shape.
MUMBAI: The villain is back and this time, he’s rewriting his own script. Jio Studios has partnered with Three Dimension Motion Pictures and Aspect Entertainment to revive the 1993 cult classic Khal Nayak, marking a fresh chapter for one of Bollywood’s most iconic anti-hero stories. The original film, directed by Subhash Ghai under Mukta Arts, was a commercial and cultural milestone, with Sanjay Dutt’s portrayal of Ballu becoming one of Hindi cinema’s most memorable performances.
Dutt, along with Aksha Kamboj, has now acquired the rights from the original creators, bringing on board Jio Studios and its President Jyoti Deshpande to steer the project creatively.
While the exact format whether remake, sequel, prequel, or a completely new narrative remains undisclosed, the collaboration aims to reinterpret the story for contemporary audiences while retaining the essence that made the original a defining film of the 1990s.
The move taps into a broader industry trend of reviving legacy intellectual property, particularly characters with strong recall value. “Khal Nayak” was notable for pushing mainstream Hindi cinema into morally grey territory at a time when heroes were largely one-dimensional, making Ballu’s character a standout.
The project also marks the film production debut of Aspect Entertainment, signalling a push towards more technology-led storytelling frameworks. Meanwhile, Jio Studios continues to expand its slate, having built a library of over 200 films and series, with more than 60 titles collectively winning 500-plus awards.
For Dutt, the revival is as much personal as it is strategic, a return to a role that reshaped his career. For the industry, it is another sign that nostalgia, when paired with scale, remains a powerful box-office proposition.
Because in Bollywood, some villains never fade, they just wait for the perfect comeback.
