Actor Deepak Adhikary a.k.a Dev has bought the rights to the acclaimed film ‘Nayak’ by Satuajit Ray. Both Sandip Ray, Satyajit’s son, and Dev have confirmed the news. Dev, being a producer himself, has a keen interest in bringing more good content to the industry and he says that the idea of remaking ‘Nayak’ had been in his mind for some time.
The director of the movie has not yet been decided. But it will not be Srijit Mukherjee. The most likely director has been canceled out by the actor and producer. There is a probability for directors like Koushik Ganguly, Kamaleshwar Mukherjee or Ramkamal Mukherjee.
But is this really a good decision to remake the movie? ‘Nayak’ is one of the few movies not only from Bengal, but the whole of India, that received wide international acclaim. Almost everybody has seen it and everybody has agreed that this masterpiece could not have been made by anybody else. Why take up such a risk? Uttam Kumar had always been a god-like figure for Bengalis and every actor who has played Uttam Kumar has been criticised. Dev should think more like a producer here, and less like an actor.
There are not many directors with the mastery and flair of Ray, and not many actors like Uttam Kumar. If Nayak is remade, it will most probably turn out to be a bland caricature. Dev’s last film ‘Bagha Jatin’ was highly anticipated. It did quite a business at the box office, but could not impress the critics. With ‘Nayak’ it would be a lot better to cast some other actors like Jisshu or Parambrata and try to have directors like Anurag Basu or Aparna Sen, who actually can pull off this herculean job.