Vi segnalo l'articolo How two men pulled off a 52-episode Indian adaptation of Stephen King's It... without reading a single page, di Gayle Sequeira, pubblicato oggi da Film Companion. Il pezzo racconta l'incredibile realizzazione di Woh, una serie televisiva indiana horror diretta da Glen Barretto e Ankush Mohla, trasmessa nel 1998 dal canale Zee TV, ispirata dalla seconda parte del celebre romanzo It - o meglio, dalla sinossi di dieci righe - e dalle due puntate della miniserie americana omonima. Né i registi né gli sceneggiatori hanno mai letto il libro. Nel cast Ashutosh Gowariker, Shreyas Talpade e Liliput Faruqui (nel ruolo del clown). L'articolo include il link ad un paio di episodi.
'Fresh off the shoot of Akele Hum Akele Tum (1995), on which he [Mohla] was an assistant director, he wanted to bring that "small-town, college campus" wibe to Woh. He asked Barretto, a chief assistant director he'd met as an apprentice on Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar (1992), to help him adapt the book into a series. (...)
His [di Barretto] next task was 'Indianizing' the show. He moved the setting from Derry, Maine, to the hill station of Panchgani, linked the resurgence of the clown to a solar eclipse (considered inauspicious in Hindu mythology) and wrote it such that the evil could only be defeated by a crystal found inside the well of a local temple.
In 1996, the two shot a 40-minute pilot at Madh Island "just for fun". They were in their 20s. (...) As he [Barretto] had assisted Gowariker on Pehla Nasha (1993) and Baazi (1995), convincing the director to play the part of Ashutosh, whose son is kidnapped (and later possessed) by the clown, was easy.
What's harder was finding takers for the show. (...) Sony passed on the pilot. Doordarshan picked it up but gave the show the 6.30 PM 'child programming' slot on seeing the clown. Baffled, Mohla and Barretto decided to turn down the offer. (...) Zee TV was interested in the show. " We got to know this in November 1997. Janyuary 1998 was supposed to be the telecast date. Everything moved quickly after that," says Mohla.
The title track happened overnight. Mohla and composer Raju Singh holed themselves up inside a room and listened to English electronic band Prodigy from 11 PM to 5 AM. They emerged with an eerie, childlike 'na na na na' tune. The voices chanting 'woh woh woh woh' over what sounds like a sick turntable beat are theirs. The resulting opening credits were a spooky, seemingly Se7en-inspired montage, featuring shots of a bloodied knife, scorpions, barbed wire, tribal masks and a mud crab (to represent Madh Island, where parts of the show were shot). (...)
As neither writer had read the book, they borrowed much of their characters' personalities from the actors playing them. (...) Mohla himself, who had what Barretto calls a "James Dean vibe" played Shiva, a local don. (...) As most of the cast were friends, dialogues were born out of their banter. Scenes and subplots were written, rewritten, added or subtracted to accomodate actors who had become more popular over the course of the show and were now busy with other projects. (...)
Liliput's own life experiences heavily influenced the ending. He told Mohla and Barretto anecdotes of being publicly laughed at and discriminated against because of his stature. His move to Mumbai and success as an actor despite these obstacles made them determined to give the character a great sendoff in the finale. The actor would later say this show was one of the few times he wasn't relegated to just the comic relief'.
