Priyanka Chopra not allowed to wear jeans

Mumbai, Bollywood actress Priyanka Chopra, who made a style statement with her hot pants and halter tops in “Dostana”, wasn’t allowed to wear a pair of jeans at home.

The 27-year-old actress, who was brought up in Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh, faced these restrictions at home after returning from the US, where she had gone to do her high school.

“I wasn’t allowed to wear short skirts and then my jeans
were also confiscated. And my mother got 12 salwar kameez sets made for me so that I wore only those because when I used to go to school, guys used to follow me,” Priyanka revealed on Farah Khan’s chat show “Tere Mere Beach Mein”.

But that phase is over for Priyanka who is counted among the most glamorous actresses in Bollywood today.

She will be seen with boxing champion Vijender Singh on the show on STAR Plus

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Ken Ghosh’s next is finally titled ‘Chance Pe Dance’

Mumbai, After a musical chair of titles that ranged from “Star” to “Yahoo”, director Ken Ghosh’s next film, which has Shahid Kapoor in the lead, has finally been titled “Chance Pe Dance”.

“Yes, my film would be called ‘Chance Pe Dance’. It’s final and in fact the first ever title for which I am giving a confirmation. Everything else before this, whether it was ‘Star’ or ‘Yahoo’, was merely speculation and, as you would have noticed, no one attached to the cast or the crew ever gave an official statement,” Ghosh told IANS.

“Now hopefully all rumours would die as the film would hereby be known as
‘Chance Pe Dance’,” he added.

Since information about the title being “Chance Pe Dance” was leaked earlier, why didn’t he confirm the news then itself?

“Because we hadn’t got it on paper yet. Someone else was holding the title and we couldn’t have announced it as ours till all the formalities were carried out.

“We also had to be careful since the entire bargaining thing comes into the picture when the party that holds the title gets to know that it has been leaked out. However, all is well that ends well since on the Saturday gone by, we finally had ‘Chance Pe Dance’ as our title,” said Ghosh.

Considering the fact that the film, which also stars Genelia D’Souza, is a musical, a title like “Chance Pe Dance” does make sense.

“You can’t ignore the relevance of the word ‘chance’ here though. Life just gives you one chance and you have to grab it with both hands. This is what happens to my protagonist in the film too who makes best use of the chance available to him. He dances on it…pun intended, and what happens to him from thereon is to be seen in the film,” the director explained.

Ghosh had launched Shahid with his “Ishq Vishk” and the director is happy that his protege’s “Kaminey” has not only done well at the box office but sky-rocketed him into the top league.

“Well, such things do work in favour of your film for sure. But eventually it’s the product that matters. His ‘Dil Bole Hadippa’ is looking good as well and it would be nice to have two successful films behind Shahid when ‘Chance Pe Dance’ releases”, said Ghosh.

So when is the movie set to release?

“Well, it could be in November or December but, yes, the movie is releasing this year for sure,” he said.

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No Hrithik or Abhishek yet for ‘Agneepath’ remake: Karan Johar

Mumbai, There have been speculations about who will play the male lead in the remake of the 1990 hit “Agneepath”. While the names of Hrithik Roshan and Abhishek Bachchan popped up, filmmaker Karan Johar clarifies that no one has been finalised to play the part Amitabh Bachchan immortalised in the original.

“I haven’t made any statement whatsoever around the man who would eventually be playing the role of Vijay Dinanath Chauhan that was made
iconic by Mr. Amitabh Bachchan. All I have said is that, yes, we are going ahead with a remake of ‘Agneepath’ and that’s about it,” Johar told IANS.

Whether it is Hrithik, Abhishek or someone else, Johar must be having a wish list?

“Well, the wish list is to get the screenplay right. For the moment nothing else is more important than that,” he said.

Even though the film is being produced under the banner of Dharma Productions, Johar won’t be going behind the camera for the movie.

“True, I would be stepping aside and the film would be directed by Karan Malhotra, who has assisted me on ‘My Name Is Khan’. That’s the only thing which has been finalised… everything else you hear is mere speculation. We will finalise the cast once the script is locked. Currently, it is still in the process of being written,” he added.

Malhotra is not really a novice when it comes to filmmaking. He has earlier worked as an assistant director with Ashutosh Gowariker on “Jodhaa Akbar”, Farah Khan on “Main Hoon Na”, Farhan Akhtar on “Lakshya” and Raj Kumar Santoshi “Lajja and Pukar” amongst others.

Since it is close to two decades since the release of “Agneepath”, would the remake have a different milieu to it?

“Certainly! We are adapting the film from the original, but ours would be a new age version that would fit in well with today’s time. We really hope that we are able to do justice to the original and make the remake exciting for today’s generation,” Johar said.

Dharma Productions, meanwhile, has as many as seven films that are in different stages of production. These are “My Name Is Khan”, “Wake Up Sid”, “Kurbaan”, “Koochie Koochie Hota Hai”, remakes of Hollywood flick “Stepmom” and “Agneepath” and “I Hate Love Stories”.

How is he managing it all?

“Believe me, it’s not difficult at all. All you have to do is to follow a three-point mantra – delegation, outsourcing and trust. Along with that, if you have the right vision and infrastructure in place, which we do have in Dharma Productions, it isn’t difficult to crack it all.

“That’s the way you manage things and I have been fortunate enough to have a team with which it has become possible to helm a number of projects at the same time,” said Johar.

Among the seven films, three are ready to hit the screens.

“‘Wake Up Sid’ is all set to arrive on Oct 2. ‘Kurbaan’ will come in late November. Other than that, we are looking at an early 2010 release for ‘My Name Is Khan’. Yes, these have been busy and really exciting times,” the filmmaker said.

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Bollywood on self-healing path with four hits

New Delhi, Energetic openings to Bollywood’s four recent releases, “New York”, “Kambakkht Ishq”, “Love Aaj Kal” and “Kaminey”, have succeeded in getting the business perk up. Wounded by a long strike earlier this year, the film industry is perhaps on a self-healing path now, say trade pundits.

The two-month-long stand-off between the producers-distributors and multiplex owners over revenue sharing, which was resolved June 5, led to a whopping Rs.300 crore (Rs.3 billion) loss to the Hindi film industry.

The dry spell was broken by Kabir Khan’s “New York” that released June 26 followed by the other three films — “Kambakkht Ishq” that came July 3, “Love Aaj Kal” July 31 and
“Kaminey” Aug 14 — raking in a net profit close to almost half the losses so far this year.

“These four films will do a net business of Rs.150 crore (Rs.1.5 billion) put together,” revealed an industry insider.

Said trade analyst Taran Adarsh: “The industry is definitely on a recovery path… it is getting better now, but we do need a big number of hits to follow as even an A-list movie like ‘Luck’ bombed.

“Every movie has a luck of its own. For example, a small-budget film like ‘A Wednesday’ had a moderate release last year but proved to be a dark horse. At the end of the day it’s the content that will win.”

Film critic Omar Qureshi had something similar to say.

“The industry is healing. Everyone was deprived of movies. There was a desperation to watch films and the audiences couldn’t handle it. So they took multiplexes by storm once good movies hit the screens and the result is worth watching,” said Qureshi.

“But that doesn’t mean mediocre movies will win the race too… it’ll only take big-budget and big-banner movies with a good story to make up for the losses and bring in footfalls,” he added.

The stand-off between producers-distributors and multiplex owners started in February over revenue-sharing. While the producers demanded a flat 50 percent share of all film revenues irrespective of the stars, budget and box-office collection, the exhibitors stressed on sharing profits based on the movie’s earnings.

As a result the producers declared a strike from April 4 onwards, which saw no big Bollywood releases in multiplexes across the country.

Now all eyes are set on an array of big releases after the lull.

The line-up includes Shahid Kapoor-Rani Mukerji starrer “Dil Bole Hadippa”, three movies of Salman Khan — “Wanted”, “Main Aur Mrs Khanna” and “London Dreams” — two Ranbir Kapoor-starrers “Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani” and “Rocket Singh – Salesman of The Year”, and Aamir Khan’s “3 Idiots”.

Apart from these, there are also Hrithik Roshan’s much-talked-about action thriller “Kites”, Priyanka Chopra’s “What’s Your Raashee?”, two movies starring Amitabh Bachchan — “Aladdin” and “Pa” — Akshay Kumar’s “De Dana Dan”, Govinda’s “Hook Ya Crook” and Neil Nitin Mukesh’s “Jail”.

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Kareena Kapoor yet again on ‘Filmfare’ covers

Size zero girl Kareena Kapoor is the reigning fashion diva of Bollywood. So, it does not come as a surprise when we find glossy magazine covers repeating the pretty lass over and over again. This is the third time Kareena Kapoor is on the covers of ‘Filmfare’ magazine. She sizzles in
a bright yellow dress on the September issue of the magazine and looks extremely confident exposing her hot long legs without any footwear. Not to mention here that the girl has as much of right attitude as her acting skills!

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Rani & Shahid promote ‘Dil Bole Hadippa’ on TV

Rani Mukherjee will be back on silver screen with ‘Dil Bole Hadippa’ after a long time, her last being ‘Thoda Pyaar Thoda Magic’. She has taken special efforts in getting a toned body and flaunting it in a bikini. Nevertheless, she is taking keen interest in promoting the film along with her co-star Shahid Kapoor who is on a high these days post his success of
‘Kaminey’.

The duo was seen as special guests on the grand finale of the reality show ‘India’s Got Talent’ on 22nd August on Colors. Shahid awarded the trophy to The Prince Dance group who was declared the winner of this reality show after several relatives and friends of the group, apart from state Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, corporate houses and social activists joined hands to vote en masse for them. They got a staggering Rs.50 lakhs (Rs.5 million) in cash and a swish newly-launched Maruti Suzuki Ritz car as the reward. The group, comprising 26 artistes, all below 22 years of age, spellbound everyone with their act, which was based on episodes from the Mahabharata.

The episode saw Shahid and Rani enjoying the performances and bonding well with the judges Sonali Bendre, Kirron Kher and filmmaker Shekhar Kapoor.

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Ajay Devgan’s unique proposal to Bipasha Basu

After the underwater proposal made by Akshay Kumar to Kareena Kapoor in ‘Kambakkht Ishq’, Ajay Devgan is all set to propose Bipasha Basu from mid-air in director Rohit Shetty’s upcoming comedy ‘All The Best’. The scene has Ajay seated in a sports car dangling 8 feet above the ground and giving out a rose to Bipasha standing on the
road.

The scene being risky and difficult took two days planning and an entire day for shoot. The car, being suspended from mid air and Ajay’s need to balance his weight, there was extra precaution needed as Bipasha was standing below the car and nothing could go wrong. To add to it, it had to look completely romantic. The scene has been successfully shot.
Thankfully, everything went fine and the scene was shot during the course of a day.

Besides Ajay and Bipasha, ‘All The Best’ also features Sanjay Dutt, Fardeen Khan and Mugdha Godse. The film is set for Diwali release.

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