TEHRAN -- Bollywood actors Amitabh Bachchan and Salman Khan are to star in “The Cage”, an Iranian film with a social theme, the Persian service of IRNA reported on Sunday.

Director Ali Shah-Hatami left Tehran on Sunday for New Delhi to begin shooting the film in India. He plans to hire an Indian film crew. Shah-Hatami has directed several films on the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war. His most recent films, “Shrapnel of Peace” (2001) and “The Gypsy” (2003), were not successful at the box office. Over the past few years, he has shifted to TV series, making “Khoshrekab” and “Khoshgheirat”, which aired during Noruz (the Iranian New Year holidays) in 2004 and 2005. He was criticized for his next TV series, which were broadcast during Ramadan in 2005 and 2006