Why only Parambrata for 'Bhooter Bhabishyat' remake?

Mumbai, April 27 (IANS) Satish Kaushik, who is directing "Gang Of Ghosts", the Hindi remake of Bengali film "Bhooter Bhabishyat", says it was a conscious decision to keep out the original cast, and retain only Parambrata Chatterjee from it.

"Bhooter Bhabishyat", released in 2012, is one of Bengali cinema's biggest hits of all times. It is about ghosts in an old bungalow who refuse to evict their abode to make way for a shopping mall.

From the original cast of the blockbuster directed by Anik Dutta, only Parambrata, who made a strong impact as Vidya Balan's cop-companion in the cruel climate of Kolkata in "Kahaani", will be seen in the remake.

It is understood that the producers of the remake - Venus and Ratan Jain, made a conscious decision to keep out the original Bengali cast.

"We wanted to completely revamp, restructure the original Bengali film which is hilarious, but not suited to a pan-India market. So we have changed the cast completely," said Kaushik.

So, on board are actors like Sharman Joshi, Mahie Gill, Anupam Kher, Saurabh Shukla, Rajpal Yadav, Chunky Pandey, Asrani, Vijay Verma, Yashpal Sharma, Rajesh Khattar and Jackie Shroff.

"Only Parambrata has been repeated from the original cast," added Kaushik.

Parambrata, it might be noted, made a notable impact as Vidya's silent lover in "Kahaani". Thereafter, he was slated to play a major role in the Hindi remake of the Malayalam hit "Traffic" and also a UTV film co-produced by Nikhil Advani where Parambrata was to play against Abhishek Bachchan.

Neither of the projects materialised.

The shooting of "Gang Of Ghosts" starts May 2. It will wrap up in June.

With "Gang Of Ghosts", Parambrata gets a chance to prove there is room for another Bengali hero after Mithun Chakraborty to make it to the top in Bollywood.