Pleading Night and Day

Pleading Night and Day • No Ifs with Bhatts • Lovers, Strangers

For a Tom Cruise starrer, the romantic thriller Knight and Day grossed a relatively underwhelming $261 million worldwide since its release in June last year. That hasn’t, however, stopped Fox Star Studios, the Indian arm of Hollywood giant 20th Century Fox, from commissioning a desi remake. The studio believes that there is potential to improve on director James Mangold’s cat-and-mouse chase movie, and have apparently decided Siddharth Anand is the best man for the job.

The industry grapevine has it that the Anjaana Anjaani director is being hotly pursued by the studio to helm a Hindi remake of the Tom Cruise-Cameron Diaz starrer. Anand—who has a string of moderately successful movies like Salaam Namaste, Bachna Ae Haseeno and Ta Ra Rum Pum behind him—is better known for his close friendships with film stars than his filmmaking skills. And it seems that the studio is keen to tap him for just that.

Anand has reportedly approached both Saif Ali Khan and Ranbir Kapoor for the lead, and neither actor is particularly excited about it. Saif has allegedly expressed concerns that the protagonist’s character bears more than just a passing similarity to the one he’s currently playing in Agent Vinod, and Ranbir is in no hurry to be directed by Anand again after the debacle that was Anjaana Anjaani. But the filmmaker, who’s believed to have negotiated a fancy directing fee for himself, is continuing to woo them. Currently in the process of hammering out a script, Anand has promised both actors he’ll come to them again with a finished screenplay that they’ll find hard to resist.

Sadly, little of his previous work suggests he’s capable of bringing anything terribly original to a film.

You don’t mess with the Bhatts! Two leading ladies discovered that recently. Bipasha Basu, who had been signed on to shoot an item song for the Emraan Hashmi-Jacqueline Fernandez starrer Murder 2, was dropped from the film when the actress allegedly became too demanding. She asked that the choreographer be replaced by one she felt more comfortable working with, and insisted on a more expensive costume for the dance number. Mukesh and Mahesh Bhatt, the producers, replaced her overnight with Yana Gupta, and didn’t relent even when Bipasha sent word through a common friend that she was willing to stick to the original choreographer and costume.

Now, it appears Mallika Sherawat will no longer be the leading lady in a film to be directed by Pooja Bhatt. The story goes that Mallika sent word through her secretary that Pooja would need to buy her a Los Angeles-to-Mumbai business class air-ticket so the actress could arrive in the city to begin shooting for the film on schedule. The director reportedly balked at the ridiculous demand saying she’d made no such commitment, and, in fact, had no idea that Mallika was in the US. When the actress’ secretary said his client was insisting that her airfare be borne by the Bhatts, Pooja apparently decided on the spot that she didn’t need Mallika in her film.

Not one to be easily bullied, Pooja asked the secretary to convey to Mallika that she needn’t fly to Mumbai anytime soon as she’d just been thrown out of the movie.

A reasonably popular actor and his fashion designer boyfriend have called it quits. The couple that was seen together in public at every other party and fashion show—usually joined by an over-the-hill actress who the designer was thick with—is believed to have gone through a messy break-up recently. So messy in fact, that neither acknowledges the other when they come face to face anymore. Apparently, the actor has taken a shine to a low-profile male director who’s best known for being part of a leading actress’ entourage. And the modelling fraternity says the designer is back to his old ways of hitting on every good-looking male model that he comes into contact with.

Despite never talking about their relationship publicly, the actor and designer didn’t hide their closeness. It was one of Bollywood’s worst-kept secrets, and they didn’t seem to mind. In fact, their close friends always maintained that the only reason the couple couldn’t be more open about their relationship was because of the nagging fear that it might hurt the actor’s career.

BhattsMallika SherawatSiddharth Anand