No, Paul Schrader is not talking to you, he’s on his way to Mumbai.
Indie stalwart Paul Schrader is abandoning Hollywood for Bollywood. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Schrader, the writer of such classics as Taxi Driver and Raging Bull, will make his next film in Mumbai.
THR describes Schrader’s upcoming project, Extreme City, as an action film–”"City” is a cross-cultural tale that will center on an American man who travels to India to help resolve a kidnapping case for his father-in-law, only to get caught up in a gangster plot.” Schrader is writing the script. Dialogue will be in both English and Hindi, and yes, there will probably be some musical numbers.
Schrader explained that he’s making the move because the US film industry doesn’t have the financial room for creativity. He said:
“I’ve been getting indie movies made for 20 years,” he said. “But I take a good look around and what I see is a barren, barren place — in terms of the financial community, in terms of audiences, in terms of distribution. It’s cold out there.”
Anubhav Sinha, the Indian director is producing. Schrader and Sinha are in talks with some well-known Indian stars. If they get the big names, the movie could go to one of the big studios. Otherwise they’ll go the indie route.
So what do you think? Is there a trend beginning here? There’s a lot of movie money in India, and Schrader is probably right that that provides a cushion for experimentation that you can’t find in Hollywood–even on the indie side of things. Will Smith and Steven Spielberg, via Dreamworks, already have some joint deals with Indian production companies. Can you imagine any other big time Hollywood directors or writers going all out and making movies within the Bollywood system as opposed to Hollywood? Ummm…who would be fun to see working in this kind of venue? Okay, I’d love to see George Lucas trying to make a Bollywood film. Why not?
