Why the world will listen to Big B

BIG B'S BARITONE: The producers of Penguins, A Love Story zeroed in on the Big B's English rendition.

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Mumbai: The 2006 Oscar-winning documentary, Penguins, A Love Story, internationally known as the March of the Penguins is the reason why the world will be listening to superstar Amitabh Bachchan.

Though the film's US release had Oscar-winner Morgan Freeman's narrative, when it was time to choose between Bachchan's rich baritone and Morgan's introspective monologue for the film's collector's DVD edition, producers of the film zeroed in on the Big B's English rendition.

"Morgan’s narration is detached and factual whereas Mr Bachchan has made it intimate, personal and searching for words to describe the incomprehensiveness of the behaviour of penguins,” said filmmaker Anurag Kashyap, who has written the script for Penguins, A Love Story.

In fact, according to reports, this very emotional and sensitive voice-over by Bachchan is what won the film's producers over.

At his end, Bachchan too was sure about taking on the challenge of voicing March of the Penguins.

“I went to Mr Bachchan with the proposition he did not even take a flash of a second to agree. We are very happy that satellite has been bought by Star TV in association with National Geographic, the DVD rights of the film have been acquired by Sony BMG and the theatrical distribution of 27 prints in four languages: Hindi, English, Tamil and Telugu will be distributed by Adlabs all over India on April 13,” said producer of the documentary, Sunil Doshi

Incidentally, Bachchan has also lent his voice to the Hindi version of the film. All we can say is that Morgan Freeman's loss is Amitabh Bachchan's gain.

(With inputs from Suchetana Ray)