Lothario No More

Dream Role • Fallout on the Kids

So it’s happened. Saif Ali Khan will no longer star in Talaash director Reema Kagti’s next film, a project he was committed to for some months. Industry insiders had been predicting that producers Farhan Akhtar and Ritesh Sidhwani may develop cold feet about working with Saif after the failure of Happy Ending, the latest in a string of duds the star has delivered recently. But the official word is that Saif has left the project.

The reasons, apparently, are two-fold. For one, Saif was unwilling to take the pay-cut that his producers had made clear was required of him. At least two studios that Ritesh had been negotiating with about bankrolling the project reportedly balked at the film’s budget, insisting that the producers bring the cost down from Rs 40 crore to Rs 25 crore. Both are also believed to have insisted that Saif slash his Rs 10 crore acting fee in the wake of his recent flops. But the actor has told his friends that it wasn’t just a “money decision”. Saif has said he is no longer confident that he can play another skirt-chasing child-man allergic to romantic commitment. Clearly Saif has been paying some attention to his critics, who ripped through his last film insisting he was too old to play a charming Lothario over and over again.

Saif, who was away on an end-of-the-year European holiday with his missus, is likely contemplating the direction he wants his career to take hereon. This is the second film he’s walked out of in the last few months, the first being his producing partner Dinesh Vijan’s directorial debut, a reincarnation-themed love story co-starring Parineeti Chopra. It’s a good thing he has Ek Tha Tiger director Kabir Khan’s Phantom lined up for release in the first half of 2015, which some say is a masala thriller about an undercover agent tasked with tracing the masterminds behind the 26/11 attack on Mumbai.

Dream Role

Like most 30-year-olds or so who grew up on a steady diet of Hindi films, Arjun Kapoor too has a special fondness for Mr India. And that’s not because it was produced by his father Boney Kapoor, or because his uncle Anil Kapoor is in it—he says he was only two when the movie came out, and thus way too young to understand that it was a family production. It’s because it was the only film that consumed his attention so completely as a little kid that his nanny could feed him while he was rivetted to the screen, and not have to chase him around the house coaxing him to have his lunch. “I’m sure I ghisaoed a few video cassettes of Mr India while growing up,” he told me recently, revealing that there were occasions he’d be watching it at home with his ‘Anil chachu’ eating rajma chawal beside him. “Now that I think of it, that sounds quite surreal. But at the time, it just felt like the most natural thing in the world.”

Arjun admitted to me that he’d be ‘thrilled’ if his dad did actually start working on a sequel to that revered hit with him playing the lead, but he understands that “it’s not a film that can be just jumped into one day.” He revealed that he has had a discussion with Boney, and that they do plan to look at doing a sequel in the future, “but it’s a tricky thing because we shouldn’t do it unless we’re confident we can better the first one.” Boney himself has said that finding the right story is crucial. Mr India—the original one—was co-scripted by legendary Bollywood screenwriters Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar, and directed by Shekhar Kapur. Aside from assembling a solid team to take on the sequel, Boney has also revealed that a sci-fi flick today would require a substantial budget for slick special effects.

It probably wouldn’t hurt either that Arjun establish himself first as a dependable leading man who can shoulder that kind of budget. If 2 States was a step closer towards that goal, his latest film Tevar will be his next test.

Fallout on the Kids

A star wife hosted a Christmas party for her kids’ friends at their suburban home recently, and to nobody’s surprise, her former best friend’s two children were not invited. According to the Bollywood grapevine, the star wife has cut off all ties with her gal-pal, and isn’t encouraging any socialising between their kids either.

In the wake of messy controversies recently, the star wife has reportedly decided that her husband and her will keep a low profile, and will avoid throwing parties for film industry folk and attending those of others.

Farhan AkhtarJaved AkhtarParineeti ChopraSaif Ali KhanSalim KhanShekhar Kapur