The phenomenal global response to blockbuster Baahubali has been a bench-mark inspiration for Indian cinema and veteran actor-turned-film-maker Akbar Khan (younger sibling of Feroz Khan and Sanjay Khan) is no exception. An ambitious Akbar who made the historical multi-starrer, Taj Mahal an eternal love story, in (2005), is gearing up to launch his next big-budget English venture Genghis Khan.
“My entire script-story board of Genghis was ready years ago. But with the Baahubali mega-success, I feel fully charged to take off. We propose to finalise the international cast by this October-end and start shooting in January 2018 in Mongolia,” he reveals. Why is Akbar so fascinated by the Mongol emperor? “That’s because he is an intriguing multi-faceted global icon, who has emotional, colourful human shades to him, including that of a chivalrous romantic. Various docu-features have been made on him by the Chinese, the Russians and even a Hollywood movie where the legendary Omar Sharif played the title-role of Genghiz,” says Akbar. As for the starcast, the filmmaker says that he plans to rope in eminent actors and even newcomers from Hollywood, India, China and Turkey. As for special-effects, he says, “I may be using minimum CGI, because I want my audiences to get the realistic feel of action-scenes, instead of make-believe illusion,” he signs off.
