Right now the Twilight book-to-movie score is three down, two to go, and no doubt a certain number of Twihards are suffering through anticipatory Cullen withdrawal even as we speak. But fear not: Help is on the way. The above piece of beefcake (or whatever replaces beef in India) is Imran Khan, the number-one fan pick to play Edward Cullen in a projected Bollywood-based Twilight franchise. That could translate into who knows how many films—not too mention way more kickass musical numbers than anything we’ve seen from StewPattz and friends. There is one drawback, unfortunately. Mr. Khan hasn’t read the books, he’s not interested in the story, and he hates vampires:
[Imran] doesn’t believe that a desi version of Twilight will find an audience in India, “I don’t see it working here. I think it’s too west a concept. In India we call a vampire ‘betaal’ and I think they look gory and unappealing. Vampires in the west are sexy and good looking.”
The easy solution to this problem would be to cast Miley Cyrus as Bella Swan. The stars’ mutual discomfort with the material would add an interesting edge to their performance, and the “Twilight” phenomenon could continue to chug along for years into the future. This next decade is shaping with all sorts of bleakly interesting possibilities.
