After assisting Bejoy Nambiar in David, Akshay Akkineni is making his directorial debut with the adaptation of popular Tamil film Pizza. He spoke to Divya Kaushik about shooting it entirely in 3D
When Akshay Akkineni was offered to work for the adaptation of popular Tamil film Pizza, he was sure that his directorial debut would not be a frame to frame copy of the original. So he retained the original structure of the film and worked on the storyline to make it more “smarter.” The original film was written and directed by Karthik Subbaraj and its sequel was released last year, which did not fare well at the box office. After the success of the Tamil original, the film was dubbed into Telugu and remade in Kannada and in Bengali as Golpo Holeo Shotti. Now it is all set to be released in Hindi as Pizza, but this time in 3D. The Hindi film, releasing on July 18, is co-produced by Siddharth Roy Kapur and Bejoy Nambiar.
“The original format of the film has been retained but there have been many changes done to the story to amp up the entire horror quotient of the film. The entire film has been shot in 3D and that was attempted to keep the film different from the original and also to add that edge to the film. The production team, including Bejoy Nambiar who was very closely involved at the script level, wanted to have an adaptation of the original film and not the remake. When I was approached to direct it, I was told this and I watched the film multiple time to add more interesting twists to the tale,” says Akkineni, who assisted Nambiar in his film David as well as the MTV show Rush. He is also the son of son of the veteran editor and multiple national award winner A Sreekar Prasad.
Since he has worked with Nambiar before, Akkineni was in his comfort zone while making the film. “Bejoy knows his work thoroughly as a producer and as a director. When he is a producer, he gives you ample amount of liberty to take your own decisions as a director. So there can’t be any creative clashes while working with him. Moreover, we discussed a lot of things before trying them out on sets and that helped us to come up with something new in the thriller genre,” adds Akkineni.
The film starring Akshay Oberoi, Parvathy Omanakuttan, Dipannita Sharma and Arunoday Singh is the story of pizza delivery boy who goes wrong in one of his delivery assignments. He arrives with the pizza at a house full of dark secrets. As supernatural powers come into play in that haunted house, his belief system is threatened and when he finally manages to escape, his wife goes missing. The film is about how he gets entangled in a weird situation and how he is able to overcome it. Akkineni says that he has always tried to incorporate a technological edge in his films and in this one, too, 3D has been used as a new language to communicate the storyline with the audience. Akkineni says, “We prepared one draft before we decided to make the film in 3D and one draft after we decided that we can work with 3D. We realised that 3D added to the overall impact and appeal of the story. But it was challenging to make an entire film on 3D. It is probably India’s only film entirely shot on 3D.”