Agatha Christie meets Bollywood: Vishal Bharadwaj to bring Queen of Crime to Indian cinema

In a press release issued on Monday, filmmaker Vishal Bharadwaj has revealed plans to adapt the works of crime thriller novelist Agatha Christie into a film franchise. Details have not been revealed, but the script is in progress and the leads will take inspiration from Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple, two prominent characters in Christie's novels.

Bharadwaj is best known for his adaptations of Shakespeare's works into an Indian context, most famously his trilogy of tragedies "Omkara", "Maqbool" and "Haider", which are based on Othello, Macbeth and Hamlet respectively. The new crime franchise is being helmed by Vishal Bharadwaj Films in collaboration with Agatha Christie Limited (ACL) which is currently headed by her great-grandson James Pritchard.

In an interview to Delhi Times, Bharadwaj revealed that the first movie would go on floors next year and would feature "...a young heroine thrown into solving a murder, who teams up with an unlikely companion to unravel the case." There would also be sequels focusing on the same characters.

Speaking about their first collaboration in India, James Prichard said: "I'm truly excited at the prospect of developing a new Agatha Christie film franchise in India, and am delighted to be partnering with Vishal…He has also demonstrated a real passion and understanding of my great grandmother's characters and stories and I very much look forward to seeing where this project takes us," he said.

Bharadwaj emphasised his excitement on adapting the Queen of Crime's novels to an Indian context, as he had earlier done with Shakespeare.

(Reported by Anjana Nair)