KUALA LUMPUR, May 18 — A Hollywood movie on missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 is in the works with an Indian director pitching the idea based on a theory by a Malaysian journalist yesterday to investors at the ongoing Cannes Film Festival in France.

A trailer for Rupesh Paul’s “The Vanishing Act’’ was shown yesterday and can be viewed on Youtube.

According to a report by Hollywood industry magazine Variety, Paul presented his film idea to financiers with a 90-second teaser trailer.

The trailer features a cast of terrified passengers aboard a turbulent jetliner. 

A screengrab of Rupesh Paul’s teaser trailer for ‘The Vanishing Act’.

Also presented was a poster with the tag line, “The untold story of the vanished Malaysian flight.” After Flight 370 disappeared on March 8, Paul said that he was contacted by a Malaysian journalist with a theory about what happened, according to Variety.

He then spent 20 days working on a screenplay with an ending that incorporated this idea.

The journalist, who insists on anonymity for now, is one of the film’s investors.

The teaser trailer was shot in six days in an Aerobus parked in Bombay, India. 

The budget for the film is estimated to be about US$3.5 million (RM11.3 million), with a 35-day shoot using more than 200 actors, the director told potential investors.

He also plans to release the movie in August. “People ask me one thing,” Paul said in an interview with Variety. 

“If you’re saying a theory and suddenly the flight is found and it’s totally the opposite, your investment will be wasted. We will be fools. That’s the biggest challenge I’m facing.” He also said he doesn’t think the families of the missing plane would find his film insensitive. 

“I will make sure no passengers will be hurt because of this,” Paul said. Paul acknowledged to Variety that his film is partly a work of fiction, as there is still no evidence about what happened.

“Everyone in the world, they want to know what happened,” Paul said. 

“Personally if you ask me, I want the truth to come out.”