Sudigadu (Lucky-Man in English), the first full-length spoof in Telugu cinema, will be remade in Hindi as ‘Filmy Picture’ with Ritesh Deshmukh in the lead role. The film, to be produced by southern production house Suresh Productions, will be made with a budget of Rs 25 crore.
“The film is currently in the casting stage. It will go on floors shortly and will hit the screens in summer 2013,” a Suresh Productions spokesperson told Business Standard.
Sudigadu, made with a shoe-string budget of Rs 7 crore, was released worldwide on August 24, 2012. Starring Telugu comedy hero ‘Allari Naresh’, the movie, with a tagline ‘Watch 100 movies on one ticket’, was billed as a throwback to nearly 100 Tollywood (as the Telugu film industry is known) blockbusters of the last decade.
What’s Sudigadu all about? The protagonist (Naresh) is a young guy who falls in love with Priya (Monal Gajjar), the daughter of a rich business man Shayaji Shinde. Though the love birds get a nod from Shinde, the hero faces a shocking insult from his to-be father-in-law’s henchman. How Naresh overcomes all the hurdles he faces forms the crux of the story.
The film has raked in Rs 7-crore gross collections in the first five days. Thus far, it has grossed Rs 20 crore collections, including Rs 2.5 crore from 19 screens at the US box office.
“Films, laced with nicely-etched spoof comedy, always spell minimum guarantee in Bollywood. Movies like Andaz Apna Apna, Golmaal, Hera Pheri, Love Sex Aur Dhokha and the recent Shirin Farhad Ki Toh Nikal Padi stand testimony to this, and ‘Filmy Picture’ should be no exception,” says M Adi Narayana, a Telugu film analyst.
