Khan sets Special Effects-laden Film

Indian superstar Shah Rukh Khan is to produce the country's most expensive ever movie in a bid to show the world the strength of the subcontinent's special effects and animation industries.

Khan is in Berlin with "Om Shanti Om," which his own shingle Red Chillies produced for Indian financing and distribution giant Eros Entertainment.

The untitled pic is to be made by Red Chillies on a budget of $25 million and will be helmed by Anubhav Sinha ("Cash") later this year. "We are dedicating the next eight or nine months to taking the best technicians from around the world and asking them to help us make the best VFX film India has ever made," Khan told Variety. "It will madcap, over the top. I want it to be as beautiful as 'Spider-Man' in terms of effects."

Story, boasting the feel of a videogame, will feature kids who wish for bad things, but get a reality check when they come true.

Production and financing have yet to be completed, but Khan said that he is in advanced discussions with Eros and with Charles Darby ("The Matrix," "Minority Report"), the visual effects guru who recently co-ventured with Eros to launch Mumbai-based effects Eyeqube Studios. Red Chillies is one of the leading players in the still-emerging Indian effects sector.

Khan, who is regularly cited as the world's most recognized movie actor, says that unlike other Indian stars he has not been courted by Hollywood.

"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," he said with tongue firmly in cheek. "Seriously, it would have to be character-specific. I'd love to do an action-comic film like Chris Rock and Jackie Chan.

"As a producer I'd like to make the Indian film that genuinely crosses borders, where you forget that it has a language, like 'Life Is Beautiful.' I didn't realize at first that it was an Italian film. Or 'The Lives of Others.' I think I can do it in my lifetime, maybe in the next five years.

"The magic will be not to try to make a crossover film. 'Om Shanti Om' is full of cliches of Indian cinema, but it is full of heart. I think we need to make more like this and gradually more and more people will come to like that," Khan said.

"Om Shanti Om" was released in November in the main Indian diaspora territories and became the highest grossing Indian film of all time, with a $19 million opening weekend. It gets a commercial German release on March 6.

Variety.com