Roshmilla Bhattacharya (MUMBAI MIRROR; December 24, 2013)

He’s in talks with make-up artistes and technicians from New York and LA for his upcoming comedy, 102 Not Out, which has Amitabh Bachchan playing a 102-year-old man. Other than the novel plot, which will see Paresh Rawal play the 75-year-old son to Big B, the film will be another first, Umesh Shukla will launch his banner, Benchmark Pictures, with the film.

“Soumya, the brother of Abhijat Joshi who has scripted 3 Idiots and P.K., is developing the script which we hope to lock in a week’s time,” says the director who will be co-producing the film with T-Series.

Like Shukla’s directorial debut, OMG: Oh My God!, 102 Not Out too is based on one of his Gujarati plays by the same name which has completed 300 shows and is still running. “The film doesn’t have a heroine but I’m looking forward to working with Amitji whom I had in mind even when we were working on the play. Fifteen minutes into the narration he gave the nod,” says the filmmaker.

Before he takes on the Paa, Shukla has been working with Junior on All Is Well, another comedy revolving around a father-son duo played by Rishi Kapoor and Abhishek Bachchan. They’ve just completed a shoot in Bangkok and Pattaya and now will be moving to Himachal Pradesh for a 50-day schedule. “The political unrest in Thailand did not affect us, but we lost a day to the rains. We managed to shoot a song on the busy Taksin Bridge and film portions in a transsexual night club in Pattaya,” says. Umesh.

Then there are plans for another film, for which he admits he has, "Ranveer Singh in his mind". And what’s happening to the OMG! sequel? While Shukla has announced that it’ll be a fresh take, buzz is that Akshay Kumar, who produced the first film, is upset that a corporate has announced the project without his permission with Paresh Rawal being considered to direct it. “This controversy is media generated. Paresh bhai and Akshay are my friends, they will be a part of the sequel,” he asserts, admitting that they are still struggling to nail a social issue which would resonate with the audience universally. “The idea is to make a bigger and better film and whenever it happens Paresh bhai, Akshay, Hemal Thakkar and I will be doing it. All is well.”