After Shakespeare, Vishal Bharadwaj to adapt Agatha Christie's works

Filmmaker Vishal Bhardwaj - of 'Haider' fame - has made a huge announcement. A fan of Alfred Hithcock and Agatha Christie, Bhardwaj is now all set to work on book adaptations of the latter.

It is not the first time that Bhardwaj is adapting a book into a film. He has previously adapted Shakespeare's works into movies and brought it into play with the Indian political surrounding.

In an interview with Times of India, he revealed the news stating, "I felt very honoured, very fortunate, that I have worked with Shakespeare’s works and now I will have a chance to work on an Agatha Christie project... So many movies have been made on Agatha’s stories all over the world. And many of her stories are already taken. Recently, the British director Kenneth Branagh, the one who made ‘Murder On The Orient Express’ and ‘Death On The Nile’ – he has acquired the rights for all Hercule Poirot stories, for instance."

“Anyway, in this lockdown, I contacted Agatha Christie Limited. We started discussing if we could make a movie in India. We clicked well, but it was a very long process. They offered me many novels, out of which I picked the first one,” added the filmmaker.

Bhardwaj also shared that he wanted 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," he said.

James Prichard, Chairman and CEO of Agatha Christie Limited, also mentioned, “I’m truly excited at the prospect of developing a new Agatha Christie film franchise in India, and am delighted to be partnering with Vishal, who is a multitalented and visionary filmmaker with a terrific track record for adapting works to create memorable pieces of cinema. He has also demonstrated a real passion and understanding of my great grandmother’s characters and stories and I very much look forward to seeing where this project takes us.”

The work on the project, Vishal Bhardwaj expects, would begin in 2021. The production work would commence in early 2021, according to reports.