Screenwriter/ director/ Calvanist, Paul Schrader has given Hollywood the middle finger and decided to head east for his next film project. The writer/director behind such fare as “Taxi Driver,” “The Last Temptation Of Christ,” “Mishima: A Life In Four Chapters,” and “Auto Focus” has found some new buds in Mushtaq Shiekh, creative director at Sahara One, one of India’s largest media conglomerates and Dwight Manley, the former sports agent and noted rare coin collector (seriously) who will be financing the film.
Entitled “Xtreme City” (apparently, it’s so extreme they don’t need the missing “e”), the film will center around a U.S. ranger who teams with an Indian commando to rescue the ranger’s sister-in-law who has been kidnapped by a Mumbai crime lord. The film will be bilingual (Hindi and English), and like other Bollywood films, will feature a delirious mix of drama, thriller, comedy and yes, even song and dance numbers.
However, this will be a family film so Schrader’s trademark of graphic violence and lurid sexual themes will be not be figuring in this time around. And if you’re thinking this is just Schrader joining a work-for-hire job, think again. Apparently, the idea came from the director himself after he was approached to do another film but didn’t like the material he was offered. The film is budgeted at $10 million and will shoot next year in New York, the Persian Gulf and Mumbai. There is no details on casting yet, but the producer Sheikh wants “marquee thesps from India and the West” (though with that budget, his definition of “marquee” will need to be very flexible).
It’s hard not to see why Schrader has turned to India for his next film. His last two films (“Adam Resurrected” and “The Walker”) were completely ignored, and in the case of “Dominion: Prequel To The Exorcist” Schrader went through the kind of studio meddling usually reserved for a Terry Gilliam project. What is intriguing is that he’s fully embracing the tropes of popular Indian cinema and shooting something based off his own idea. Either Schrader is newly invigorated or is just itching to direct something, anything; but in any case we’re always rooting for the guy, and we can’t wait to see the result of a Schrader helmed Bollywood film no matter how strange it seems.
