We are not kidding. The director of the upcoming dual lingual Tamil film, ‘Jagame Thandhiram’, Karthik Subbaraj, is planning to make a script for Al Pacino to star in. However, when that will happen, we still do not know. We only found this out recently in an interview given by the brilliant writer-director. Karthik had initially expressed his disappointment in not being able to approach either Al Pacino or Robert De Niro for the Netflix thriller, but has taken the change in circumstances as a good omen now.
The initial plan made by Karthik was that ‘Jagame Thandhiram’ would actually take place in New York, with themes of immigration, racism, home and gang violence to be the main driving force behind the film. And for the film’s major villain, he needed a well-known American actor who was known for playing iconic gangsters to play a major crime boss. With Al Pacino in mind and Robert De Niro as a second choice, Karthik and his team went to LA (Los Angeles) to convince either actor to get on the film.
But after staying in the city for a month, the director was not able to move his script past the casting table. The process of casting a Hollywood heavyweight like Pacino and De Niro in films came with its own process and obstacles. After weeks of intense discussion, Karthik understood that the production he was a part of was not ready for an actor of Pacino’s caliber and thought that he needed a better script to approach him as well. So he decided then that he will make a different movie for Al Pacino, and decided to choose another actor to be cast as the villain for ‘Jagame Thandhiram’.
Eventually the production had to shift from New York to London due to the heavy challenges faced for filming back in 2016,17 and 18 in the US. After doing his research, Karthik was surprised that his film would work better in London than in New York, especially for his script and was even more delighted when he got ‘Game of Thrones’ actor James Cosmo to play the role of the main villain in his movie.
Of course the decision to make a movie for Pacino feels like a spur of the moment thing, but Karthik is one of the biggest up and coming writer-directors in India. With enough time and persistence, we believe that Karthik will be able to bring even Pacino to the table.