Filling out Michael J. Fox's puffy vest is actor Akshay Kumar, according to rumors. The lovely Aishwarya Rai may also be taking on the role Lea Thompson once played. Rai is so gorgeous, I could easily be talked into seeing this film, but again why make it a remake? Why not just a funny, Bollywood time traveling movie?

The director, Vipul Shah won't be forcing the actors to play teenagers, but I wonder how they will deal with the whole teen angst issues, and of course Biff the bully. Let's hope that it isn't a direct remake of the film because I just can't see how you could have a Back To The Future without "Calvin Klein" showing up to the school sock hop. Many other sites seem to be questioning whether it'll be a page for page translation as well.

The movie production is set to begin this February.

[Real Bollywood]

Other great moments include all the amazing product placement throughout the film, and the wonderful salute to consumerism when our heroes arrive in the future Mumbai and discover that ads are now holographic and can lunge down your throat. (It's awesome!) And there's a snake charmer — with a robot snake! Plus the bit where they find a derelict sex bot and repair her, so she becomes their true companion.

And the bit, earlier on, where our hero tries to use the time machine to get some nookie from his girlfriend — who doesn't put out, so he coaxes her into running out into traffic to get him an ice cream. "Hurry up! I'm waiting for my cold kiss!" he yells just before a truck smushes her. Ah, love. [IMDB]

Indian movie star Asin is set to star in a new big-budget movie that's "based on" the still-filming Endhiran, according to producers Usha Venkataramani and Mahadevan Ganesh of GV Films. Not much is known about the film, except that it'll be a "quickie" for the actress, who has designs on Disney and Warner Bros. projects in the U.S., and it'll be made simultaneously in both Hindi and Tamil, to maximize its bankability. (The Hindi version will co-star Ranbar Kapoor.)

Why does Endhiran sound like such a great movie that people are already dying to rip it off? It could be the star, Rajnikanth, or the action coordinator, the famous Yuen Wo-Ping. Or it could be the fact that it has llamas dancing with showgirls. Or could it be the storyline, about a guy who makes a robot companion for his kid, and then the robot goes insane? Nope. It's all to do with director S. Shankar. Here are the plots of the bugfuck crazy movies he's made before:

[Nayak,] the story of a reporter (Anil Kapoor of SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE) who becomes Prime Minister of India for a day and fixes the country’s social problems by punching people in the face... S. Shankar’s second-to-the-last movie was Anniyan, a Tamil film about a lawyer with who seeks justice by causing evildoers to be trampeled to death in a buffalo stampede, fried in pots of oil and sucked dry by leeches. It was a musical. His latest movie is the Superstar Rajnikanth mega-hit Sivaji, in which Tamil superstar Rajnikanth battles the corrupt government with his fists.

Don't you automatically want to see whatever this guy makes now?

Speaking of imitation, that Bollywood Predator ripoff we mentioned a while back, Agyaat, is actually a ripoff of another forthcoming Bollywood movie, Hisss. The first Bollywood movie to be directed by a foreign director, Jennifer Lynch, Hisss features Mallika Sherawat as a sexy snake woman. Says Hisss star Irfan Khan:

She plays a man-eating creature. She swallows men in the film. And I'm just dying to be swallowed her. Watching her devour men is a very very sensuous process. Unfortunately, I don't get eaten by her. I'm the investigative officer trying to find out who's devouring all these human beings.

And apparently Agyaat will be a bit of a Hisss clone.

Agyaat, filming in the Sigirya jungles of Sri Lanka, features a film crew lost in the jungle. Ramu explains:

It's about a film crew that loses its way in the jungles. And something out there starts killing them one by one. Why a film crew? Because it's like a walking office.

There's a narcissistic star, a subservient spotboy, cameraman, a frustrated action director, an assistant director who has a crush on the heroine, a selfobsessed actor, a producer who thinks the director is making a mess and a director who thinks he's the Steven Spielberg of India …

All of them have their own mindscape in the given hierarchy. But the moment they's caught in terror situation their inherent humanism comes to the surface.

I love that he's so proud of his film's collection of one-dimensional stereotypes lost in the jungle. That will set it apart from typical alien monster films for sure! But there are surprises — like the macho action star turns out to be a "sissy." It'll be like a reality TV show, he promises.

The good news is, he's strongly influenced by some classic science fiction films:

In The Invasion Of The Bodysnatchers I remember one line. 'Why do we always expect alien creatures to invade a space ship. Why can't it be a biological invasion?' I want to explore this terror of the unknown."

Ramu is supremely kicked by his new project. "The challenging part in Agyaat is to create an evil force that's not visible, definable or even comprehensible.Some strange phenomenon in the jungle.

I read an interview with Ridley Scott where talking on Aliens he said, 'There's no need to understand what's happening during a time of terror. Because if you explain it you reduce the thrill of it.' Hence Agyaat, the unknown."

Agyaat will have some of the best special effects seen in Indian cinema. "It will be a projection of a destructive force from which the victims cam't hide or run. They simply succumb to it."

[Titbits]

How does this awesomely bizarre-looking sequence relate to the movie's plot, about a robot that goes haywire and starts killing? We don't know.

At the same time, Shahrukh Khan (SRK) has found a title for his Spider-Man-esque adventure: Ra.1. SRK was supposed to star in Enthiram and produce the robot film, but he ditched it to create his own scifi epic, because he felt Enthiram wasn't believable enough. SRK is "taking a keen interest" in the scripting of Ra.1, and may get a writing credit on the film.

And meanwhile, Aishwarya's husband Abishek Bachchan, starring in the new superhero film Drona, wants his character and mega superhero Krrish to meet up in a crossover film. "It would be great to have the two of them together in a film. I’m sure the fans would love it," says Abishek. Krrish is the most famous Indian superhero of all time, and frequently compared to an Indian Superman. We celebrated it, and featured a clip, here.

[Bollywood Gossip and Zimbio and APunkachoice]

Yuen Wo-Ping, who did the stunts for The Matrix, Kill Bill and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon will mastermind the movie's action sequences. Costume designer Mary E. Vogt, who worked on Batman Returns and Men In Black, will design the "futuristic suits" people will wear, but Manish Malhotra will design the regular everyday outfits of the movie's future people. Stan Winston Studios will design the movie's animatronics, and VFX houses like ILM and Tippet will do the movie's visual effects.

I love that the announcement says "one song" will be filmed at Machu Picchu in Peru, while director Shankar and star Rajnikanth are filming two songs in the U.S. It's just something about the idea of filming songs instead of scenes that is so awesome. By the way, apparently Enthiram is a "Kollywood" movie instead of a Bollywood film, because it's being filmed in Tamil. Additional reporting by Lauren Davis. [Galatta and

I love the Forrest Gump-esque animation of the blue feather floating up and over the city, in the trailer. Supposedly Drona blends Indian mythology with a science fictional plot about the secrets of the universe. Here's the synopsis:

From the times, when time itself was a newborn babe, the universe has kept one secret carefully camouflaged within its folds. A secret, which if unraveled, could unlock the destruction of mankind and the entire cosmos. Today, only one man can protect the universe’s precious secret and thus, save the human race from absolute annihilation.

The other four awesome special effects sequences, according to Bajewa, include:

The giant airborne fight sequence between Karan (played by Bajewa's son Harman) and Zayesha (Priyanka Chopra), with the actors doing all their own stunts. I'm guessing there's a lot of wirework involved (similar to Hancock, which also substitutes real wirework for CGI flying.) And it looks like it's some kind of video game brought to life.

Boo, the robot teddy bear and Zayesha's best friend. He looks like he's fully animatronic, rather than just CGI. Oscar winner John Cox, who also worked on Babe and The Host, created Boo.

Karan's friend QT, the female robot. Come on, it's a female robot named QT. That's just insane. Boo and QT team up to bring Karan and Zayesha together. And she shares a crazy dance number with Karan:

The huge fight scene between Karan and Dr. Hoshi, the bad guy. Which looks like it's full of CGI, what with the energy balls blasting back and forth and the crazy face-distortions. I would never say no to a huge energy-ball battle in a futuristic metropolis. Especially if it's followed by a big robot dance number. [Star Box Office]

The new stills and wallpapers, mostly come from the movie's new website, which director Harry Bajewa (Harman's dad) says is the most futuristic website they could make. (It has Java!) And here's that awesome dancing clip. I'm still beyond excited for this movie.

[123 Masala and Bollywood Hungama]

SRK's movie will start shooting towards the end of the year, and in the meantime he'll be asking the world's greatest special effects technicians to help make it the greatest effects movie of all time. He tells Variety, "It will madcap, over the top. I want it to be as beautiful as Spider-Man in terms of effects." The movie will be about kids who wish for bad things, but "get a reality check when they come true." SRK reportedly jumped ship from Robot because he felt its storyline, about a companion robot that turns deadly, wasn't realistic enough.

Hollywood hasn't courted SRK yet, and he says he's waiting for the right opportunity for his quirky persona:

I'm waiting for someone like Steven Spielberg or James Cameron or some other great person like Ang Lee to make a film a film about a brown, thin, scrawny Indian guy who doesn't speak English too well. If they ever have a character like that and Google it, I'm sure they'll find me... Seriously, it would have to be character-specific. I'd love to do an action-comic film like Chris Rock and Jackie Chan.

[Variety]

Mr. India (1987). A cheesy sci-fi comedy with song-and-dance numbers. Arun discovers his scientist dad created a special wristband that turns the wearer invisible. He uses this to stop the mad genius Mogambo, who wants to take over India. (Mogambo's evil schemes weirdly include cutting off Arun's line of credit at the grocery store, but also launching nuclear missiles at India.) Here's a clip that shows Mogambo's evil lair and his giant gold epaulets:

Kol... Mil Gaya (2003). Maybe the most famous Bollywood science fiction film ever. An ET-esque alien named Jadoo befriends a mentally challenged boy and cures him. But then it turns out the alien's spaceship crash actually killed the kid's father. Here's one of the song-and-dance sequences involving Jadoo (wearing an orange hoodie and bling around his neck.) The little Kraftwerk sample gets bonus points:
Krrish (2006) is a quasi-sequel to Kol... Mil Gaya, about a small-town kid who gets superpowers and fights evil. It uses many of the superhero conventions, including the secret identity and the nosy girl reporter.

We're anxiously awaiting 2008's Love Story 2050, which takes place partly in a dark future Mumbai and partly in the present day. The future Mumbai will be mostly CGI, but the film will also feature an animatronic character, a robot named Boo. And lead actor Harman Bajewa learned Parkour, the art of jumping from rooftop to rooftop, for the movie.

Also fervently awaited: S. Shankar's Robot, starring South India's darling Rajnikanth. It'll have a billion-rupee budget and tons of special effects. It's the story of a scientist who creates a robot companion for his disabled child. But the robot goes berserk and starts killing people. Like robots always do.

India hasn't produced much original science fiction in the past, but there are two reasons why India will rule the genre in the future. First, India is ground zero for computer animation and special effects. There were only 27,000 professionals working in computer animation in India in 2001, but there will be 300,000 people in the industry in 2008. Also, Bollywood films have always had extensive "fantasy sequences" where realism suddenly goes out the window and bizarre stunts happen. Just imagine if some of that same cinematic language gets applied to science fiction.

The film has a monster budget of one billion rupees, and will be produced in three languages in the UK. Here's what the proud producers have to say about it:

Robot will be the grandest and most entertaining film ever made in Indian cinema and be produced in Tamil, Telugu and Hindi and be a high-tech film with the use of the state-of-the-art technology.Image by AP

Rajnikanth to star in Shankar's 'Robot' [Yahoo! India]

Robot will be a "futuristic vigilante tale" of man versus robots, according to comments attributed to Shah Rukh Khan, the film star who bailed out of the lead role a month ago. Khan quit because he didn't like the script, but now Ajith Kumar (Vaali, pictured above) is set to star.