MUMBAI: Eros International has announced the launch of Sujoy Ghosh’s modern day Aladin, the evergreen Arabian Nights story in a big Bollywood format, which has recently gone on floors.

With Aladin, Eros also makes a foray into visual effects with their recently launched EyeQube Studios handling the same for the film.

Eros International in association with Sujoy Ghosh’s production company Boundscript is producing the hi-end special effects film, which stars Amitabh Bachchan, Sanjay Dutt and Riteish Deshmukh and will introduce Jackie Fernandez opposite Riteish.

“We are extremely excited about producing Aladin which promises to be a visual extravaganza and will take visual effects in Indian cinema to new heights. We will be leveraging our strength into new areas by using the most talented expertise in the special effects arena through EyeQube, our recently launched visual effects company,” says Eros International, India president Sunil Lulla.

“We have chosen the toughest audience for our film – kids who are exposed to the best of the best today with the Harry Potters, Lord of the Rings etc, hence their benchmark is higher. With Aladin, we want to present a visual delight and a film with definite positioning for children, in sync with Hollywood summer blockbusters. Through Eros’ global positioning, we hope to present the film on a worldwide platform at par with the other leading state-of-the-art visual effects films,” says director Ghosh.

“We are approaching Aladin with the same proven methods employed on large-scale Hollywood productions. We have designed the look and feel of the show prior to filming and also been involved with the production design to help weave in our effects more naturally. Basically, this film will really surprise people, it will open their eyes to a new kind of Indian film, the visual effects for this production are well thought out and will amaze the audience,” says EyeQube creative director and senior visual effects supervisor Charles Darby.

Aladin has just wrapped its Rajasthan schedule and the second schedule is presently being shot in Mumbai at Filmcity and Mehboob Studios. The film is aiming for a 2008 release.

Aladin comes as part of a five-film deal between Eros International and Boundscript. All five films will be high-end visual effects driven and each film will be aimed at raising the visual effects benchmark.