Midnight's Children: big screen rights for $1

Canada-based filmmaker of Indian origin, Deepa Mehta has revealed that she bought the rights of Britian based author of Indian origin, Salman Rushdie’s Booker Prize-winning novel Midnight’s Children for just one dollar.

Canada-based filmmaker of Indian origin, Deepa Mehta has revealed that she bought the rights of Britian based author of Indian origin, Salman Rushdie’s Booker Prize-winning novel Midnight’s Children for just one dollar.

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.