Scott Pilgrim may not have skated to the top of the US box office, but the future still looks bright for Evil Ex Number 1. He's already in Fair Game with Sean Penn and Naomi Watts, and now The Playlist has the news that Satya Bhabha has snagged the lead in **Midnight's Children, Deepa Mehta's adaptation of Salman Rushdie's novel.
Bhabha, the Bollywood-fighting-styled defender of email etiquette Matthew Patel in Pilgrim, will play Saleem Sinai. Like Patel, Sinai has mystical powers, but unlike Patel, summoning demon hipster chicks is not among them. The character in Rushdie's magic-realist novel is a telepath, acting as a conduit for a worldwide diaspora of hundreds of children. Born at the exact moment of India's independence, he plays a part in every significant subsequent historical event in India, becoming a celebrated hero in the process. But he still gets called Snotface because of his giant dripping nose, and Stainface because of a birthmark.
Bhabha says he's been learning some Hindhi for the complex role, and says that Midnight's Children will go before cameras before the end of the year, which chimes with earlier reports that shooting would start in September. Irrfan Khan (The Warrior, Slumdog Millionaire) is also involved, along with Bollywood actress Shahana Goswami, and Rushdie is reportedly very happy with the script. He says his book is "eminently filmable". For more on that, come back tomorrow lunchtime for our Scott Pilgrim webchat, which Bhabha will be attending.