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"The broad modalities have been worked out ... I am delighted to do Vanity Fair." Mira Nair

It was a year ago at Cannes that Universal Studios spotted Mira Nair and her movie Monsoon Wedding. Taken up by both, the American studio did something unheard of: it acquired Nair's movie and slotted it as a mainstream product in the United States. Not many would have bought into that logic at the time. Now, six months after a hugely successful run-the film has grossed nearly $12 million-the studio is laughing its way to the bank. And charting a new relationship with Nair.

Universal has entrusted the direction of its $24-million movie Vanity Fair to Nair. At the centre of this relationship is the producer of the William Makepeace Thackeray classic, Donna Gigliotti, who was part of the Universal team at Cannes that decided to buy Monsoon Wedding. "I saw the movie in Cannes and purchased it for Universal. It had so many characters and such broad strokes, and Nair handled it all so well. She fitted our bill perfectly," says Gigliotti.

Casting for Vanity Fair, which is scheduled for release next fall, will commence on September 1 in London while pre-production work will start a month later. The shooting will be done entirely in England and will be co-financed by Granada Films from England and Focus Features (formerly USA Films), a subsidiary of Universal Studios.

Currently in Kampala, Nair says, "I am delighted to do the movie. We have worked out the modalities and should be in a position to commence shooting in January next year."

The English novelist Thackeray came into his own for the satirical panorama of upper-middle class London life and manners at the beginning of the 19th century. The protagonist of Vanity Fair is clever, unscrupulous Rebecca Sharp, who wrests the heroine's place in the novel from the predictably good Amelia Sedley. Reese Witherspoon of Legally Blond fame is likely to play the role of Sharp.
Besides Nair and Gigliotti, the movie has additional star power in its screenplay writer, Julian Fellows, who bagged last year's Academy Award for his screenplay in Gosford Park. Gigliotti won it as producer for Shakespeare in Love, which swept the Oscars in 1999, including an award for best film. Nair herself was an Oscar contender in the foreign film category for Salaam Bombay. It doesn't take much to guess that Universal would be positioning Vanity Fair as yet another Oscar contender in 2004 and Nair would have a fresh shot at the Oscars-after having lost out to Lagaan for nomination to the foreign film category.

The success of Monsoon Wedding in the mainstream marked the beginning of a crossover of Indian cinema. It also meant that Nair was noticed by big American studios. Will Vanity Fair now do for Nair what it did for Thackeray in the literary world?

-Anil Padmanabhan