Bollywood Epic To Employ Ancient Action-Hero Gods Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger
Following last week's surprise announcement that India's Reliance ADA Group would sink a half-billion into DreamWorks, the lines dividing Hollywood and Bollywood continue to blur: Today comes news that national action-hero treasures Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger have carved some time out of their busy franchise-rebooting / incomprehensible-speechifying schedules to sign on for the most epic Bollywood production of all time. And it's all going down right on the Universal lot, a stone's throw from Steven Spielberg's DreamWorks offices:
The 61-year-old "Rocky" legend will soon become the first well-known American actor to star in a Bollywood film.
"Incredible Love," which is also set to feature Arnold Schwarzenegger, marks the first Indian production to be shot at Hollywood's Universal Studios and will have the largest budget of any Bollywood movie - over $21 million. It will co-star Bollywood stars Ashkay Kumar and Kareena Kapoor and tell the story of an Indian stuntman who takes Hollywood by storm, but can't find true love.
The production is a departure for both '80s action titans, who we hope will make the most of their debuts not playing some ham-fisted send-up of their own personas, but rather colorful, Bollywoodesque characters integral to the plot: Perhaps they could be shrunk to the size of field mice, and play tiny, multi-limbed agent-gods, forever bickering in their client's ear about the most effective way to woo a beautiful stuntprincess. Here's hoping this marks just the beginning of the Holly-Bolly cultural exchange, and that some local Indian dayplayer might soon find himself nobly gutted by Stallone's own first on a Bangalore soundstage, where production on Rocky Vs. Rambo: First Reckoning has just begun.