The director of ‘Tango & Cash’ wants 18 million dollars to kill McDonald’s in Russia

The Russian filmmaker brothers Nikita Mikhalkov (director of Burnt by the Sun) and Andrei Konchalovsky (director of Tango & Cash and House of Fools) have written Vladimir Putin a letter asking the Kremlin to help them establish a fast-food chain called Let’s Eat at Home! The chain is meant to offer Russians an alternative to Western fast food, like McDonald’s, which has been under increased pressure from Russian health inspectors in the past year.

The brothers have asked the government to invest 971.8 million rubles (about $18.6 million) in their restaurant’s pilot project, which would involve opening a series of delicatessen stores alongside the restaurants. The chain’s menu, Mikhalkov and Konchalovsky say, would change based on location, catering to local foods. They also propose putting Let’s Eat at Home! in charge of supplying food to social-service institutions.

Mikhalkov and Konchalovsky sent their letter to Putin on March 16, 2015. According to the newspaper Kommersant, eight days later, as soon as March 24, Putin ordered his deputy prime minister to review the proposal and explore options for cooperation.

Konchalovsky’s wife, Yulia Vysotskaya, currently owns the Let’s Eat at Home! trademark. She hosts a television cooking show by the same name, and markets frozen berry mixes under the Let’s Eat at Home! brand.

It’s thought the commercial kitchens will supply food to social-service institutions, including orphanages and foster homes. The pilot program would take place in two regions: Moscow and Kaluga, where they’d establish two commercial kitchens and open 41 restaurants and 91 stores. “Given the socio-political nature of the project [...] we ask the government to commission the Let’s Eat at Home! project,” Mikhalkov and Konchalovsky write.