DREAM CAST: It is unlikely that the three Khans will ever get to work together.
Superstars don’t work with other superstars and there is no clear answer to why this is a truism. But that is just the way it is. Many decades ago, in 1949, Raj Kapoor and Dilip Kumar came together in one movie. It was the only time and that too before they were superstars.
Rajnikant and Kamal Hasan, both legends of the Tamil film industry, worked in quite a few movies together in the beginning of their career but once they attained god-like statures, they decided to never be in the same movie.
For the last two decades the three Khans — Shah Rukh, Salman and Aamir — have dominated Bollywood. But think of the number of movies they have done together and you can count them on your one finger.
Shah Rukh and Salman came together for Karan Arjun, while Aamir and Salman were seen in Andaz Apna Apna. Aamir and Shah Rukh have never acted together. The holy grail of casting, which would be every producer’s dream, is to get the three of them together. And they just won’t do it.
Farah Khan says she tried to have them in the same frame when, as director, she had that ensemble song in the Shah Rukh movie Om Shanti Om. While Salman came on board, Aamir stayed away.
Earlier this year, she was quoted as saying that not even God could get them together. But at least one of them, Shah Rukh, does not think it is beyond the realm of possibility. In a recent interview he was asked about this and he agreed that it would be too expensive for any producer to make a movie with all of them together. But the solution to that, according to him, was they could all three co-produce the movie. But the greater difficulty was in finding a story that would give all three equal importance.
Strangely, the example he gave of such a movie in which all characters have equal weight was a Hollywood hit of the 1980s called Ghostbusters. He also said that when the three meet they often joke of working together. This might actually be the only point in time, when all of them seem to be friends with each other unlike periods in the past when they had issues. But chances are it will never come to pass. Their temperaments and approach to movies are so different that they will never see eye to eye in their creativity.
Out again
It is becoming next to impossible to keep Sanjay Dutt in prison. He can outrage an entire nation by working the system so that he gets repeated paroles and furloughs ever since he got convicted for illegal arms possession and was sentenced to three and a half years starting in May 2013. Instead of doing his time, he has been back home too often for anyone’s comfort.
Every time, different reasons are cited. First there were his own health issues, then he came out because his wife Manyata was unwell and now he is again out, this time because of his daughter needing a nose surgery. But, as with all his paroles, they inevitably get questions raised around them. This time, it is said that he had actually made the application sometime in June but the red tape of the government ensured that it took so many months for it to get passed. But by now, the daughter’s surgery was long over. So the reason for which he asked for the parole no longer exists but he got it nevertheless!
It helps to be a film star from a politically connected family because regular convicts have a really tough time getting paroles. Many languish for years without seeing the outside of prison. In Dutt’s case there is even talk of him asking for remission of the sentence so that he can walk out forever before his time. For the moment at least, the authorities seem to be not humouring the request.
The forgotten
Salman Khan, it is said, has a heart of gold that often melts leading him to help many needy people. Some of it might even be true but not always.
A family in Kashmir has just learnt that if a superstar’s spur of the moment offer to help turn their lives around is too good to be true, then it is too good to be true. When Salman was shooting for Bajrangi Bhaijaan in the region he had come across this destitute 75-year-old woman who solicited his help.
He gave her grandchild a job in the sets of the movie while it was being shot and also promised to help them construct a house. And till the movie came out, his aides were in touch with the family but after its release they are now finding that Salman has forgotten them and his assistants ignore their attempts to get in touch.
When a newspaper broke the story, it got an anonymous quote from someone close to Salman that he had asked people to get the grandchild a job in the locality and that the house construction was in progress and would be over soon. Let’s hope the media report has refreshed Salman’s memory.
Send your feedback to
[email protected]
A necessary hit
Recently, it was reported that the trailer of Tamasha, Ranbir Kapoor’s next movie, would come around the time of his birthday, which falls on September 20. The movie itself will only hit the screens in November and it might just be a make or break moment for him.
For a long time, Imran Khan was compared against Ranbir to show how while the former had become a flop actor the latter was scaling new heights. But not any longer. Ranbir is now in Imran territory when it comes to fortune evading. Ranbir’s last three movies have been unqualified duds. These were Besharam, Roy and Bombay Velvet.
If he doesn’t get a hit with Tamasha then he will be in serious trouble because he is pairing up with Deepika Padukone and they have always delivered and have two big hits together in the past.
Tamasha is directed by Imtiaz Ali, who also has a good record of hits, including Rockstar which starred Ranbir. If with such a combination, the movie flops, then Ranbir’s stock in Bollywood will be scraping the bottom.
