Apart from the several visitors of the stars (Sanjay Dutt, Akshay Kumar, Zayed Khan), representatives from Hollywood producer-director Michael Bay's (Transformers, Pearl Harbor, Bad Boys) office made their presence felt on the sets of Anthony D'Souza's Blue being shot in Phuket.

It is learnt that Hollywood action director James D Bomalick (The Mummy, Indiana Jones series) who is coordinating the deep sea stunts for Blue, showed rushes of what had been shot in the earlier Bahamas schedule to Bay.

Reversal of sorts

Says a unit source, "It appears to be a reversal of sorts — Hollywood is waking up to Bollywood now. Michael Bay was surprised to see an Indian film set amidst high-octane stunt sequences in the ocean. He felt the movie's styling had a very Hollywood feel to it. Along with James Bomalick, Bay evinced a keen interest in the subject to Blue's producers, Ashtavinayak."

Adds the source, "Michael Bay came up with the offer to make Blue in English and sought distribution rights in the Western world. As this was not possible considering major chunks have already been shot and the stars are very busy, they proposed a sequel to Blue, which will be shot in English along with the same cast. Bay showed interest in jointly producing and distributing Blue 2."

Exploring possibilities

Ashtavinayak's spokesperson confirms that representatives of Michael Bay visited Phuket recently. "They showed great interest in the subject. We have not yet finalised any deal but an offer was made. We are exploring the possibilities."

Blue, which also stars Lara Dutta, Zayed Khan, Katrina Kaif, has A R Rahman scoring the music. It is slated to release in early 2009.