The battle of the runner-up after the three Khans has been decided for the moment and Akshay Kumar has trumped Hrithik Roshan. Their movies — Rustom and Mohenjo Daro —released on Friday, August 12, a week and a half back. By end of the weekend it was apparent that Rustom was going to be a hit while Mohenjo Daro’s start was lame. 
The only way for its fortunes to change was if word of mouth got strong enough to get more people in to theatres on the weekdays. This has happened before, most famously in recent times with Bajirao Mastani, which went head to head with Shah Rukh Khan’s Dilwale and after a regular start picked up steam until it became the bigger success of the two.  
Unfortunately, Mohenjo Daro, a fable drama revolving around the thousands of years old Indus Valley civilisation, just found no connect with the audience. Even critics thought that it was an average sort of fare with a few good moments. They didn’t have many kind words for Rustom either but if the box office counters start ringing then that turns out to be the only thing that matters. The movie will be in the Rs100 crore club, the marker for a decent hit. Mohenjo Daro meanwhile is somewhere at the half level of Rustom. The date on which the two movies released was timed along with the Indian Independence Day holiday. 
Rustom was directed by Neeraj Pandey, who is now a long time favourite of Akshay. Their combination has given three hits so far — Special 26, Baby and Rustom. And flush with the latest success, the two are now going to make yet one more movie called Crack. If news reports are to be believed then that will also release on the Indian Independence Day weekend next year. 
Looks like Akshay has decided to monopolise this slot, like Salman Khan does with Eid and Aamir Khan does with the Christmas-New Year week. There might be small hitch though because apparently Shah Rukh Khan is also planning to release a movie on that week next year. But then considering Shah Rukh’s current form, that might not worry Akshay too much. 
Also, after the Dilwale-Bajirao Mastani clash, Shah Rukh has avoided confrontation with other big budget movies and so he will probably be the first to blink here too. 

Peaking time


Jacqueline Fernandez is among the crop of actresses who is waiting in the wings to make it to the topmost league. She has already been cast in movies opposite stars like Salman Khan and Akshay Kumar. But these are inevitably characters that are second fiddle or arm candy. 
She is nowhere in the Deepika Padukone league or, when it comes to critical acclaim, the Kangana Ranaut club. But beginning with a flop movie called Aladin in 2009, Jacqueline got her first big hit in the slapstick comedy Housefull. She continued to appear as one among multiple actresses in movies like Race 2, Housefull 2. 
Her big break was Kick with Salman Khan. She is now appearing as a judge in a dance reality show of a popular television channel but what has surprised many is the fee she is getting for it. If rumours are to be believed, she is charging Rs1 crore for every episode that she appears in. 
The audience also saw her in the just released movie Dishoom which starred Varun Dhawan and John Abraham. Before that in this year, there was also Housefull 3, which was a hit. And soon she will be seen in A Flying Jatt opposite Tiger Shroff. Apparently, during a promotion for the movie, she changed her dress five times in one day, leaving Tiger somewhat irritated with her constant absences.  


No villain


Ever since she became a mother, Kajol has more or less given up on having an active career in Hindi movies. But such was her brand value, that she could still choose to get a movie whenever the desire to return on screen hit her. Not that they were always successful. A movie, U Me Aur Hum, with husband Ajay Devgn in 2008 had sunk without making any waves. 
But then there were also movies like My Name Is Khan which went on to become hits. In 2015, she returned after a five year hiatus to pair up with Shah Rukh Khan for Dilwale. Directed by Rohit Shetty, a director with the Midas touch, it was supposed to be a failproof movie but it went onto to be a big disappointment. 
Recently there was news floating around that Kajol would appear in the third edition of the superhit Salman Khan franchise of Dabangg. But then it was said that she had refused it because the role was actually that of the villain’s character. Not that she has not done negative roles before. In Gupt she played a murderer. But at this stage in life, when acting is only a hobby, she really does not need to reinvent herself.  


Secret hint



Nargis Fakhri recently broke up with Uday Chopra and is therefore going through a rough patch. She even reportedly left India for a while to deal with it. Now that she is back, there is curiosity as to why the break up happened. 
Of course, these things are never revealed officially by the concerned parties themselves. But when Nargis put up an Instagram photo of a puppy sleeping peacefully in bed with the line ‘how u sleep when u single & no one cheating on u’, the gossip mill took it for what it hinted — that the reason for the breakup had been Uday cheating on her. 
Some days later, Nargis put up a link to a media article that said this and termed that it was rubbish. But such denials too are standard operating protocol after Bollywood break-ups. Meanwhile, Nargis came in for another bad news when her credit card details were used by fraudsters to make illegal transactions of US$9000. 


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