Midnight's Children: big screen rights for $1
Hindustan Times
New Delhi, January 09, 2013
First Published: 17:57 IST(9/1/2013)
Last Updated: 14:30 IST(10/1/2013)
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Director Deepa Mehta with writer Salman Rushdie during the 37th Toronto International Film Festival. Rushdie wrote the book in 1981 which went on to win the Booker Prize. It was awarded the 'Booker of Bookers' Prize and the best all-time prize winners in 1993 and 2008 to celebrate the Booker Prize 25th and 40th anniversary.
“Salman and I often talked about working together. One night, over
dinner, I asked him who had the rights to Midnight’s Children. He said he did. I asked to buy them and he sold the option to me for one dollar. It was not premeditated; it was just gut instinct,” says Mehta.
Incidentally, Rushdie was not keen initially to adapt the book for the screen himself. But Mehta convinced him to write the screenplay. Featuring an ensemble cast of actors Satya Bhabha, Shriya Saran, Sidharth, Anupam Kher, Shabana Azmi, Seema Biswas, Shahana Goswami, Rahul Bose, Soha Ali Khan, and Darsheel Safary, the film hits the screens on February 1.
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