Game-hosting Hawke's Bay is set to appear on the sporting stage when the 2011 Rugby World Cup comes to town next September, and now there are plans for the region to also make a pre-cup splash on the silver screen in a rugby film.
The rugby-themed film, set to star Temuera
Morrison, has the working title First XV and will see filming take place in Wairoa and Napier.
The film will be the work of Auckland-based company Purple Post Films, which has already used the Bay as a backdrop for one of its features - the "Bollywood" themed Pump Up The Mandali.
That film, in Hindi with English sub-titles, debuted in Napier two months ago before going into widespread release overseas.
Napier City Council economic development manager Ron Massey said the production company had been in contact and he said the council would provide whatever assistance it could.
Mr Massey said the region could only benefit from the exposure of films which through the Bollywood links drew widespread audiences.
While not essentially Bollywood, First XV was set to star Indian actor Anupam Kher who has been in several Bollywood films.
He will play a dairy owner with a rugby-mad All Black-following son who wants to play the game despite his family's reluctance.
Mr Morrison will play the part of a successful rugby coach who leaves the big city for his home town after his son is seriously injured in a match and ends up taking the reins of a small Wairoa team, which may just happen to have a young Indian boy on its playing books.
Mr Massey said he understood the film was planned for a pre-2011 World Cup release.
