Kajol and Kareena in Karan Johar's new film

Kareena Kapoor, Kajol and Arjun Rampal will play the characters of Julia Roberts, Susan Sarandon and Ed Harris respectively in the Bollywood adaptation of 'Stepmom'.

The yet-untitled film will be produced by Karan Johar's Dharma productions in association with Shahrukh's Red Chilles Entertainment and will be directed by Siddharth Malhotra.

In the film Simi (Kajol) and Siddharth (Arjum Rampal) play a divorced couple struggling to keep their children, a daughter and a son, happy with the sudden change of lifestyle. Matters get complicated as Siddharth gets into a live in relationship with his girlfriend Natasha (Kareena). Although Natasha tries her level best to make the kids happy and comfortable with the situation, they refuse to accept her.

Simi, jealous of the successful, career-oriented Natasha treats her very coldly and blames her for being a homewrecker. Simi also tries to break off Natasha's relationship with Siddharth. However he proposes to Natasha, making her the kids' stepmother. Things take a U-turn when Simi is diagonised with cancer and gets angry at the fact that after all of the sacrifices she made for her family, she will soon lose her life. What follows is how Natasha take charge of the situation and bonds with the kids as well as Simi.

Asked why he was settling with remakes, Karan replied: "I`d always want to direct original content. But there are young filmmakers in my company who are excited by the idea of adapting films. Siddharth Malhotra, for example, is doing a Hindi version of "Stepmom" for our company. He`s working really hard on it. An adaptation is as difficult as an original film. And Siddharth is working really hard on it."

But will a Bollywood film with such a strong subject matter do well at the box office? Karan says that he is making the film to bring about a change in Bollywood which is cluttered with romantic comedies. "I believe in the emotional content of both my cinema and personal relationships. Look at the longevity of the association between my company Dharma Productions and Shah Rukh Khan`s Red Chillies and you`ll see what I mean." he adds.

The film is still under pre production and will tentatively hit theaters in late 2010.