Plans on to turn Bhootnath, Aashiqui into franchise

With the trend of sequels getting popular in Bollywood, producer Bhushan Kumar has expressed his desire to turn Aashiqui and Bhootnath into franchise.

With the trend of sequels getting popular in Bollywood, producer Bhushan Kumar has expressed his desire to turn Aashiqui and Bhootnath into franchise. Kumar wants to take ahead three projects as a franchise, including Aashiqui, a romantic saga which recently had a hit sequel, Aashiqui 2, ghost comedy, Bhootnath, and the yet to be released 3D horror movie, Creature.

"These days franchises are a click with the audience, like the way Bhatt's have taken the franchise of Murder, Raaz, etc ahead. This pattern is followed in Hollywood. We would like to turn these three films into a brand and make their third and fourth instalment provided audience is ready to accept it," Kumar told PTI.

"If we get a good response to Bhootnath 2 and Creature, we would surely go ahead and make the next part. For us the acceptance of audience is important, we won't keep making sequel after sequel just for the heck of it," he added. In 2008 Ravi Chopra produced film, Bhootnath, where megastar Amitabh Bachchan played a friendly ghost. The sequel will be produced by BR Films and Bhushan Kumar of T-Series.

The original film starred Bachchan, Juhi Chawla, Shahrukh Khan, Aman Siddiqui as Banku, Priyanshu Chatterjee and Rajpal Yadav. The second instalment, to be directed by Chillar Party (2011) co-director Nitesh Tiwari, will again have Bachchan reprising his role. The addition will be Boman Irani and a new child, who is yet to be cast.

The film will go on floors in October and will release in April next year. It is learnt that this time, the budget is going to be over Rs 30 crore. The first part was reportedly made on a budget of Rs 20 crore.