Veteran filmmaker Vishal Bhardwaj has revealed that he will be adapting Agatha Christie‘s novels into films. Bhardwaj is already well known for his thrilling and creative adaptations of Shakespeare’s works like Haider, based on Hamlet, Omkara, based on Othello and Maqbool, based on Macbeth.
In an interview with The Times of India, he revealed how he came to this decision. He said that he was stuck in his Mussoorie house during the pandemic and wondered how filming would be possible due to Covid-19. He was reading a lot of classic murder mysteries like those of Alfred Hitchcock and Agatha Christie, when the idea came to him. He said, “My location and my situation gave me an idea – of the sort of movie that can be made in such a situation,”. He decided to shoot a film franchise on Agatha Christie’s works that could be shot in one location.
He has already struck a deal with the Agatha Christie Estate, a body that manages the rights to her works, and is geared up to bring the movies to India.
He told The Times of India,
I proposed to the estate that I want to take two characters from the story, a boy and a girl who are not professional detectives, and make a franchise out of them – and they loved the idea! I’m going to place the story in Auli since the whole plot is rooted in mountains, and the mountains are a character in the story.
Agatha Christie is one of the world’s best selling mystery authors and her fan base is exhaustive. Her notable works like Murder on the Orient Express and Death on the Nile have already been made into successful movies. Seeing her stories being played out by Bhardwaj and weaving it with Indian elements and culturally relevant factors will be extremely interesting. He said, “I am so excited because this gives me an opportunity to explore Agatha Christie in our context… placing them in our social, political backdrop”.
Vishal Bhardwaj adds a unique touch to all the movies he makes, and we cannot wait to see what tricks he has in store for this upcoming franchise!