Kamal Haasan’s Hollywood Project With Lord Of The Rings Maker, Which Never Materialised & Vijay Sethupathi Used A Similar Title… ( Photo Credit – Instagram; IMDb )
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Kamal Haasan is not just an actor; he’s an encyclopedia of films, and he has earned this title by doing things that will be remembered forever. Be it him wanting Jackie Chan, Salman Khan, Katrina Kaif, and Prabhas to unite for a blockbuster inspired by Brian De Palma’s 1987 Hollywood classic The Untouchables or pretending to be dead only to shoot a scene with a real non-vfx Eagle in a 1000 crore film that could’ve brought Kate Winslet, Rajinikanth & Amitabh Bachchan together; this man has done it all.
Today, we’ll talk about a project of his that could’ve changed the game for Indian cinema forever, but unfortunately, it didn’t come to fruition. The story starts back in 2008 when Kamal met Lord Of The Rings’ maker, Barrie M Osborne, to talk about doing a project together.
Osborne talked about the same in an interview with ET (in 2012) and said, “I met Kamal in 2008 or 2009 in Mumbai. That was when we started to talk about a project. Then, both of us got busy, and that dropped by the wayside. More recently, when he was finishing ‘Vishwaroopam‘ and coming to Los Angeles, we met again and started talking again about doing something together.”
Opening up about the excitement to work with Kamal Haasan, in the same interview, Lord Of The Rings‘ maker further said, “I was interested in Indian cinema, but was really interested in telling stories to the international audience. And I think Kamal is also interested in telling stories. Though he is rooted in India, he is also interested in reaching a global audience and telling stories to the global market. To start with, we discussed ideas that we could work on together. We exchanged ideas. I actually liked one of his ideas, and we agreed to develop that. Hopefully, we will make a movie from that idea. It’s in its early days now. But I hope we will work together.”
He also expressed his wish to work with Big B, “I love working with Amitabh Bachchan; he’s a real treat! Though the role is small, he plays a very good role in The Great Gatsby (an upcoming movie whose executive producer is Osborne).”
Hollywood’s biggie couldn’t resist working with Kamal!
In another conversation with PTI, he also opened up about how he couldn’t resist Kamal Haasan’s idea and was impressed by him, “I am impressed by what he has accomplished on Vishwaroop. After that, we started talking about ideas and the possibility of working together. His knowledge of history, literature, and films is encyclopedic. Kamal presented an idea to me that was so compelling that I couldn’t resist working with him.”
Vijay Sethupathi using the similar title
In 2013, it was also reported that Kamal Haasan’s Hollywood project with Barrie M Osborne would be titled All are Kin, which translates to Yavarum Kelir in Tamil. It roughly means, “All people are my kin.” Interestingly, another Tamil superstar, Vijay Sethupathi, did a film titled ‘Yaadhum Oore Yaavarum Kelir’ in 2023, which wasn’t related to what Kamal was doing. Yaadhum Oore Yaavarum Kelir can be loosely translated to “All places are my hometown, all people are my kin,” it was taken from an ancient Tamil poem by Kaniyan Poongunranar.
