With Salman Khan’s ‘Kick’, Chetan Bhagat Makes Debut as Screenplay Writer

MUMBAI: After his bosom buddy, producer Sajid Nadiadwala whom Salman Khan persuaded to take over as director of ‘Kick’, it is now author Chetan Bhagat’s turn.

Chetan Bhagat, the eminent writer whose books have given B-town films like 'Hello', the blockbuster '3 Idiots' and forthcoming projects '2 States' and 'Kai Po Che' will turn scriptwriter for 'Kick' - the upcoming movie of Sajid Nadiawala that stars superstar Salman Khan.

‘Kick’ will start in April right after the first lengthy schedule of Sohail Khan’s ‘Sher Khan’.

Chetan Bhagat seems all geared for the new challenge of turning into a screenwriter. Of course Salman is the big incentive. “I wanted to work with Salman since ‘Hello’. I couldn’t have hoped for a better debut as a screenplay writer. I hope to make this Salman’s best film ever. The challenge here is to restructure the original screenplay and take it to a new level. We could easily do a faithful and simply re-gurgitate the entire Telugu film into Hindi because with Salman anything and everything works.”

“I saw the original film in Telugu and loved it. But I felt there was potential there to take the content deeper. It is the story of a guy who lives for kicks. Everything he does, he does for the thrill of it. I want to explore that theme of living for pleasure, take it to another level. I wanted to do a a script that wasn’t my own story. Now I get to do it for the country’s biggest star. Not only that, one of the country’s top producer Sajid Nadiadwala makes his directorial debut in ‘Kick’. So I get to make my debut along another major debut. His (Sajid’s) vision for Kick is huge. I hope I am able to make his vision come true,” added Bhagat.

Both Sajid and Chetan apparently share good rapport. The rights of Chetan's best-selling novel '2 States: The Story of My Marriage' was bagged by the filmmaker, who also took over the directorial reins of the film from Shirish Kunder. Apparently later he thought of bringing in the writer on board for 'Kick' to do the changes in screenplay.

When contacted Sajid Nadiadwala confirmed Chetan Bhagat as the screenwriter for ‘Kick’. “We have Chetan to write the screenplay and Rajat Arora to do the dialogues. I didn’t want to turn director without being sure of the writing. Now I am confident it will be kick-ass.”