It’s been known for some time that Players, the official, licensed Indian remake of The Italian Job, will film in New Zealand, but what surprised me is that Wellington is to take the place of Torino in the 21st-century version.
   At least they changed the name, because the American remake of The Italian Job was set in Los Angeles. I assume it is called Players because The Wellington Job doesn’t have the same ring to it.
   Abbas and Mastan Burmawalla are directing, which will mean plenty of style, and the cast includes Abhishek Bachchan, Sonam Kapoor, Bipasha Basu, Bobby Deol, Sikander Kher and Neil Nitin Mukesh. With the female names in there, this may be a remake of the remake of The Italian Job, because I cannot see either Sonam or Bipasha called Rozzer, Yellow or Camp Freddie. And the male names suggest that this film should do well among a decent part of the audience with four of India’s super-hunks in it.
   None are identifiable as the local equivalent of Prof Peach.
   A few things interest me at this stage.
   We’ll need an excuse for $4 million of gold bullion to be shipped to Wellington, and it won’t be for a Fiat car factory. Assuming that’s closer to $40 million today, there aren’t too many reasons someone would shift that much to us down here in gold.
   Possibilities include: (a) PM John Key decides to shift his personal fortune for safe-keeping at Bill English’s house in Wellington; (b) MGM’s payment for the Hobbit movie; or (c) a Chinese bribe for concessions on the free-trade deal to lock India out.
   We already know that you can race a Mini around the city quite happily thanks to Goodbye, Pork Pie:

so three should not be a problem.
   I’m not terribly sure where the Wellington traffic computer is, whether our women are, indeed, as large as Prof Peach would like them, and I wonder what shape our fictional Mafia (‘The Mafia? The Mafia’) will take. I have some suspicions, and it involves the local cast of The Apprentice throwing Filofaxes. One hears, however, Russian actor Vyacheslav Razbegaev is lined up to take a part.
   The only question remains is: what is Hindi for ‘You’re only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!’ so I may add it to my ‘Favourite quotes’ section in Facebook?
   In all seriousness, I may well time my next visit to India when this premières. Time to email some enquiries through …