(Image source from: 'The Gods Must Be Crazy' in Hindi soon})

Bollywood is all set to have its own desi version of 1890's Hollywood laugh riot The Gods Must Be Crazy now.

Noted short filmmaker M J Ramanan will adapt  Jamie Uys' South African comic caper. The rights have been acquired and the film is likely to go on the floors soon.

Paresh Rawal and Zareen Khan have been roped in for the lead roles, while talks are on with Remo D’Souza for another important role.

Based in Botswana, the original movie trails the 'travails of a tribe' who are oblivious to the world beyond them until a soft drink bottle, hurled out of an aircraft, accidentally falls on their “earth” and their life changes forever.  The tribal, assuming the bottle to be evil, plan to get rid of it. And then begins a quest to discard the bottle that brings the tribesman in contact with the civilization for the first time and that unleashes a series of comic events.

However, in the Bollywood remake, the bottle will be replaced by Dawood Ibrahim’s mobile phone.

Talking about the venture, Ramanan said, “South filmmaker Babu has secured the rights to make it in Tamil, Telugu and Hindi. I have adapted the script for the Hindi version and will direct as well with Navin Kumar Sharma as producer. We have set the film in a remote mountainous place in Himachal Pradesh. The soft drink bottle in the original has been replaced with Dawood Ibrahim’s cell phone, as there is also an underworld touch to the script. Paresh essays a gangster in the film.”

“We will making an announcement soon once the full cast is finalised.” Ramanan had earlier directed the Jackie Shroff-Sonu Sood-Mandira Bedi film Meri Bhi Suno produced by Pahlaj Nihalani that never saw light of day. He later worked on some Hollywood productions and was also creative director of Zila Ghaziabad,” Ramanan further added.

AW: Suchorita Dutta