Making biopics — especially of eminent sports personalities — has become a trend in Indian cinema, and films like Bhaag Milka Bhaag, MS Dhoni: The Untold Story, Dangal, Mary Kom, Sachin: A Billion Dreams and Azhar have worked wonders at the worldwide box office.
The next biopic in the pipeline is on Kerala's own athlete and Olympian PT Usha, who was nicknamed Payyoli Express as she hails from Payyoli in Kozhikode, Kerala.
The upcoming movie is the dream project of ad filmmaker Revathi S Varmha, and she has apparently approached Bollywood-Hollywood actress Priyanka Chopra to bring alive the renowned athlete on the silver screen.
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Priyanka had earlier played as boxer MC Mary Kom in her biopic and garnered enormous response from the audience.
However, the actress has not yet confirmed her availability as she is busy with back-to-back Bollywood and Hollywood projects.
If not Priyanka, the other option in Revathy's mind is believed to be Bollywood diva Sonam Kapoor.
The filmmaker has confirmed that everything for the yet-to-be-titled film will be finalised in the next six months.
Oscar winner AR Rahman has been roped in to compose music for the big-budget project, which is apparently being made on a whopping budget of Rs 100 crore.
The multilingual movie will be made in English and later dubbed in Hindi, Chinese, Russian and some other Indian languages.
Usha, who was first noticed by her coach OM Nambiar in 1976, has won more than 100 international medals in the 100m, 200m, 400m and 400m runs.
The athlete was conferred the prestigious Padma Shri and Arjuna Award in 1984 and currently runs the Usha School of Athletics in Koyilandy, Kerala.
