Fox Star Studios bags the Hindi making rights of Kannada hit Lucia

Fox Star Studios India (FSSI) has acquired the Hindi-language remake rights of Pawan Kumar’s Kannada hit Lucia. The deal was concluded at the Film Bazaar organized by India’s National Film Development Corporation on the precinct of the ongoing International Film Festival of India at Goa. Lucia tells the story of a theatre usher who has a life changing experience and has lucid dreams of being a film star. The Hindi remake will be a significantly bigger budget than the original and Fox and Kumar are scouting for a Bollywood star on whom they could bank upon. Shooting of the Hindi version will start as and when the casting is formalised. Kumar will again direct the film. Said the director in a statement, “Initially, when I wrote the film, it was for the Kannadigas. But now I have to look at it from a national point of view and maybe global too because the studio will be giving the film an international release.” Fox Star Studio is a five-year-old joint venture of Star Television and 20th Century Fox. It works in partnership with Fox International Productions, the Los Angeles-based foreign-language production unit. Here it may be interesting to note that the London Indian Film Festival selected the film. There Lucia ended up winning the audience award. Later the film was subsequently shown at the Mumbai Film Festival. It is also an entrant at the International Film Festival of Kerala in December. The Tamil and Telugu filming rights were sold to Thirukumaran Entertainment for approximately $95,000 while the broadcast rights went to Udaya TV, part of the Sun Network for $143,000.