Ashutosh Gowarikar’s Buddha is growing daily. The film on Prince Siddhartha’s journey to enlightenment has now got many a big Hollywood name attached to it.
David S. Ward, best known for his Oscar-winning screenplay The Sting (Paul Newman, Robert Redford), will be writing the script for Buddha. Ward also co-wrote the Tom Hanks-starrer Sleepless in Seattle.
Michael Shane would be Buddha’s executive producer. Shane’s credits include Hollywood blockbusters like I, Robot and Catch Me If You Can.
Karl Walter Lindenlaub will shoot Buddha. The German-born director of photography is based in Los Angeles and has shot films like Independence Day, The Jackal, Maid in Manhattan, The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian and Ninja Assassin.
Buddha’s costumes will be done by April Ferry who has worked on Terminator 3 and Rome. Glenn Boswell will be the stunt coordinator. Given that he has worked in films like X-Men Origins: Wolverine, all three Matrix films and The Thin Red Line, the action should be special.
That’s not all. The pre visualisation is being supervised by Jarrod Linton (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, The Da Vinci Code) and the storyboard is being done by David Russell (Star Wars, Batman, Moulin Rouge).
Says Ashutosh: “The past two months of pre-production have been exciting. It has been exhilarating to be working with people who have worked in movies that I have admired and seen over and over again. This is the first time that I have done pre-visualisation for a film. It has been an amazing learning curve.”
