'India's Vidhu Vinod Chopra shoots English-language pic'

VARIETY

Anton Yelchin, Vincent D'Onofrio star in 'Broken Horses'

By MARC GRASER

Chopra

After producing India's highest grossing local movie, "3 Idiots," director Vidhu Vinod Chopra has enlisted Anton Yelchin, Chris Marquette and Vincent D'Onofrio to star in his first English-language film, "Broken Horses."

Thomas Jane, Sean Patrick Flanery and Maria Valverde co-star in the indie that Reliance Entertainment is financing. Mandeville Films' David Hoberman and Todd Lieberman are producing with Chopra and Subhash Dhar.

Pic is lensing in and around Los Angeles. Death Valley is also set to serve as a location. "Broken Horses" is set in the shadows of the U.S.-Mexico border gang wars.

Chopra conceived of the story and penned the script with Abhijat Joshi.

Tom Stern ("The Hunger Games") serves as director of photography, while Toby Corbett ("Bad Lieutenant") is the production designer and Mary Vogt ("Men in Black 3") is costume designer on "Broken Horses."

Vinod Chopra Films has produced 12 pics in India since the shingle was founded in 1977, including such hits as "1942: A Love Story," "Parineeta" and the "Patch Adams"-inspired "Munna Bhai MBBS" and its sequel. Mandeville is prepping a sequel to "The Muppets" at Disney, while Relativity and Summit are readying to release its "21 and Over" and "Warm Bodies" next year.

"3 Idiots," directed by Rajkumar Hirani, earned nearly $11 million outside of India when it was released in 2009.