Thaindian News

New York, April 17 (IANS) Call it a sort of sequel to the Oscar-winner “Slumdog Millionaire”. Aravind Adiga’s Man Booker winner “The White Tiger” will be made into a Hollywood film soon.
John Hart’s newly formed Smuggler Films has acquired rights to “The White Tiger” as its first project, the Hollywood Reporter said.

Both Vikas Swarup’s novel “Q and A”, on which “Slumdog Millionaire” was based, and Adiga’s novel focus on “class tensions in contemporary India”, the report said.

“The White Tiger”, which won Britain’s top literary prize last year, narrates the story of Balram Halwai, “a rough-around-the-edges, politically incorrect rickshaw driver who struggles to escape his lower caste and poor upbringing by taking a driving job for a wealthy boss - and winds up committing a murder”.

Smuggler Films said this project offers a decidedly darker message than Danny Boyle’s Oscar winner.

“While ‘Slumdog’ paints a romantic portrait of the rising India, in which anyone can be a millionaire, ‘The White Tiger’ suggests that to succeed, murder may be the only option,” the report quoted the producers as saying.

“The White Tiger” will be produced in association with Jolyon Symonds’ and Nicholas Greene’s Ascension Entertainment.

Hart is a producer who, after his Hart-Sharp banner was dissolved several years ago, formed Evamere Entertainment. He most recently served as a producer on “Revolutionary Road.”