Bend It Like Beckham’s Gurinder Chadha to direct Disney original based on Indian princess

The Disney franchise is about to go the desi route. Bride and Prejudice director Gurinder Chadha and screenwriter Paul Mayeda Berges are all set to helm an original musical feature, which will reportedly be about a ‘dynamic princess’ from Indian history. (Also read: Robert Pattinson, girlfriend Suki Waterhouse walk the red carpet together for first time. See pics)

Gurinder Chadha is a two-time BAFTA nominee for her work on Bend It Like Beckham and for her debut film Bhaji on the Beach. Gurinder Chadha’s next film, What’s Cooking, served as the Opening Night film for the 2000 Sundance Film Festival and was also the first British script to be taken into the Sundance Institute’s Writer’s Lab.

No further details about Gurinder’s Disney musical have been revealed yet although Deadline reports that the project would be headed by the President of the Walt Disney Motion Picture Production, Sean Bailey. Producer Lindy Goldstein, who made ‘The Nutcracker and the Four Realms’ is also set to join the production team through her Lindy Goldstein Production banner.

At the time of its release, Bend It Like Beckham, that starred Parminder Nagra and Keira Knightley in pivotal roles, went on to become the highest-grossing British-financed and distributed film ever at the UK box office. In addition to a BAFTA nomination for Best British Film, Bend It Like Beckham also received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Picture (Musical or Comedy) and a Writers Guild of America nomination for Best Original Screenplay.

Her production company Bend It Films have grossed in excess of $300 million USD at the box office. In 2015, both Gurinder Chadha and Paul Mayeda Berges debuted the stage musical version of Bend It Like Beckham in London’s West End to great acclaim. Her most recent film, Blinded By The Light, that revolved around Javed, a 16 year old Pakistani boy growing up in Margaret Thatcher’s England in 1987, was acquired at a whopping deal of $15 million at the Sundance Film Festival.