Firoz Nadiadwala, the producer of the Bollywood film Welcome Back, has revealed that Dubai audiences are set to receive a world-exclusive early look at the film at the 2014 Dubai International Film Festival (DIFF).
“We’d most definitely love to premiere the film in Dubai and we are planning a first-look AV launch at DIFF this year,” said Nadiadwala on the set of the movie on The Palm on Wednesday. The festival runs from December 10-17.
The cast and crew are in the UAE to shoot the final scenes for the movie, which is due out in January. Filming began in Abu Dhabi on September 29 and they will mostly be heading back to India over Eid, then returning for more filming in Dubai.
Welcome Back, the sequel to 2007's hugely successful gangster flick-meets-romcom Welcome, which was also set and filmed in Dubai, has been variously linked to a December or January launch, but its writer and director, Anees Bazmee, is more concerned with finishing his movie than worrying about release dates.
“We definitely want to do a big premiere here because the entire film was shot here and we want to see the reaction here,” he says. “It’s very important to see the reaction because almost all of the movie was shot in Dubai, as was the first one, and it all takes place in Dubai. All the characters live here except the lead, who travels here from India.
“I’m not 100 per cent sure about the date yet because there is still work to do on the film. For example, we shot the climax in the desert with a storm coming in, so it was very difficult and we need to work on special effects, too.”
Most of the cast of the 2007 original return for the sequel, including Anil Kapoor as the gangster Majnu Bhai and Nana Patekar as Uday Shetty. One notable absence from the cast is Akshay Kumar, who is replaced in the lead role by John Abraham. Bazmee says the new storyline did not allow Kumar’s character to be incorporated into the script, though it seems a reasonable assumption that the former buddies Kumar and Nadiadwala’s much-publicised 2010 falling out over Kumar’s high wage demands may have played a part. Also appearing in the film are Shruti Haasan, who plays the female lead, and Shiney Ahuja.
Seven years is a long time to wait for a sequel, particularly in an industry as prolific as Bollywood, but Bazmee says the wait has been for all the right reasons
“It took so long because we couldn’t find a suitable story,” he says. “As a writer I didn’t want to make a sequel for the sake of making a sequel. It had to be the right script, then eventually I got the idea and we started making the picture.”
But after such a long wait, is the team confident that the audience appetite for a sequel remain strong?
Bazmee is sure they do.
"Welcome is shown every other day on TV in India and is a total cult film," he says. "Everyone in India over seven years of age has seen the film, maybe 50 or 80 times, and when we announced the sequel there was a massive response."
Nadiadwala says that he doesn’t expect the change in lead actor to have any negative impact.
“When they change the lead in a Bond movie or a Batman movie, do people stop going to see it?” he asks.
No one on set was giving much away about the plot of the movie, though we did learn a little about Ahuja’s character, who is the son of a top gangster.
“My character has been spoiled by his dad, but he’s a simpleton at heart,” he says. “He gets used by people because he’s so simple, so gullible. That’s kind of the beautiful thing about him, too. He’s just been brought up in that environment. He’s the son of the biggest gangster in the world, and had no mother, so he’s just had everything he wants. He’s made some bad decisions and got into drugs, but his heart is clean.”
So will the movie find Ahuja’s character seeking love and marriage, despite his unorthodox background, like the families of the gangsters in the first movie?
“I do fall in love with a girl, but I can’t really tell you any more about it,” he smiles.
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