Helen Mirren stars in latest food-centric blockbuster

Throw in a smattering of A-list actors, a dash of seductive, visual food porn, and a sprinkling of bucolic scenery and you get the recipe for cinematic success, an increasingly popular Hollywood trend whose latest culinary film stars Helen Mirren -- and a lot of amazing Indian food.

Set for US release August 8 and rolling out internationally starting this week, “The Hundred-Foot Journey” is backed by some of Hollywood’s most powerful stars, including producers Steven Spielberg and Oprah Winfrey.

Based on Richard Morais’s book of the same name, the story throws two incongruous worlds together in a collision set in the fictional, rural town of Lumiere (which means ‘light’ in French): A loud and boisterous Indian family against an uppity French restaurateur.

When the Haji family has the audacity to open an inexpensive Indian restaurant across the street from Madame Mallory’s Michelin-starred French restaurant, the town becomes engaged in culinary warfare that eventually ends with “the skinny Indian teenager” landing his own restaurant in Paris.

For her role, Mirren tinges her English with a French accent. And in a little not-so-subtle nod to Mirren’s Oscar-winning performance in “The Queen,” patriarch Haji issues a missive at the woman as she stands by her upstairs window shouting: “Always up here like a queen or something.”

"The Hundred-Foot Journey” is the latest food-centric film to hit the silver screen. Bradley Cooper is currently filming a chef movie that takes place in London, along with a star-studded cast that includes Sienna Miller, Uma Thurman and Emma Thompson.

Movie studio The Weinstein Co. was forced to change its name, originally announced as "Chef," to avoid conflict with the recently released Jon Favreau film of the same name. The official title has yet to be released.

Mirren joins Meryl Streep in taking on a strong, female culinary role. In 2009, Streep incarnated iconic American food celebrity Julia Child in the Nora Ephron film “Julie and Julia,” for which she won an Oscar.