The Half Boyfriend

When Sushant Singh Rajput walked out of Mohit Suri’s Half Girlfriend, producer Ekta Kapoor realised she needed to move quickly. She’d made Mohit and author Chetan Bhagat (on whose book the film is based) equal partners in the film’s profits, and the clock was ticking—Mohit was committed to other projects too.

According to the grapevine, Ekta and her team reached out to Arjun Kapoor, who was busy hosting Khatron Ke Khiladi in Argentina at the time. A brief treatment of the script was reportedly dispatched to the actor, and negotiations with his managers in Mumbai started quickly. Insiders reveal that Arjun’s team succeeded in swinging a sweet deal for the star because they knew the producers were racing against time to put the film into production.

It worked out just swell for Arjun, who’s been looking for opportunities to shed his anti-hero image and find projects on the lines of 2 States that could cement him as an urban romantic lead. R Balki’s Ki and Ka with Kareena Kapoor is the first step in that direction. Half Girlfriend, he’s hoping, will be the next.

Kiss and Wake Up

Call me cynical if you like, but even you have to agree that the photograph of Ranbir Kapoor and Katrina Kaif sharing a kiss on their balcony that went ‘viral’ earlier this week couldn’t possibly have been better timed. The picture showed up almost like a response to all the obituaries that tabloids have been writing of their relationship.

Not that you can blame the gossip-mongers.

Right after the release of Tamasha, while many were still insisting that Ranbir and Deepika Padukone are the Shah Rukh Khan and Kajol of this generation, an explosive interview that Katrina gave to GQ magazine hinted that there may be trouble in paradise. The Phantom star was quoted as having said: “My greatest fear is that if and when I get married and I am standing at the altar or the mandap, he may not love me completely. That he may not know his mind well enough to be making those commitments. The anticipation of heartbreak is my only fear.”

Katrina may not have been speaking specifically about Ranbir in that instance, merely responding to a question about what she fears most. But she made it fairly clear that she wasn’t thrilled about Ranbir working with Deepika: “I can’t enforce my will on the people in my life. Their choices are their own. I may not be happy with them, but I hope that as they mature or as they evolve, their choices will change.”

That, added to the comfortable vibe that Ranbir and Deepika seemed to share during the promotions of Tamasha, was all the fodder that tabloids needed to declare that Kat and her beau were over. It didn’t help that RK took off almost immediately for a long outdoor shoot of Karan Johar’s new film. The writing was on the wall. Friends of the couple went hoarse yelling that they were still very much together; that their relationship had taken a few hits but they were braving the storm as partners. Nobody wanted to believe that.

But a picture, as we all know, is worth a thousand words.

Unhappy but Helpless

Turns out that two of the actors who appear in a forthcoming comedy are pissed off with its makers. One, who has made only a guest appearance in the film, let his displeasure known by taking to social media to call out the producers for flouting their agreement by using him in their promotional campaign. The other has kept mum publicly but is telling everyone he knows that he is not happy with the way they have handled the film. For one, he says the makers sat on the film for months after it was cleared by the Censors, instead of releasing it promptly. Then, he complains, they slotted it for release literally on the heels of another movie he’s starring in, also in the same genre. If neither actor is making a big noise about the issues, it’s because both say they don’t want to get into a mud slanging match, but the truth more than likely is that neither wants the film’s influential producer as an enemy. He’s known to have vanquished enemies with the power of his words alone.

About The Author

Rajeev Masand

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