Kamaal R Khan (right) seems to have come out all guns blazing against actress Sunny Leone.
Kamaal R Khan, who goes under the sobriquet KRK, is actually a man famous for all the wrong reasons. He has made a Bhojpuri film and then appeared in the reality show Bigg Boss. After that he has been making a steady and sleazy reputation by tweeting abuse about film actresses. Recently he picked on the porn star Sunny Leone who is making her career in Bollywood films. He tweeted that Leone had said that ‘rape is surprise sex’. Leone clarified that she had not made the statement and that Kamaal had wrongly and deliberately attributed it to her. She added that he had done this because she had refused to act along with him. Given the mood in the country after a brutal gang-rape in New Delhi, this could have been disastrous for her image. So, her next step was to file a police complaint against Kamaal. He obviously didn’t like it and went on an all-out litany of abuse against her on Twitter. And then followed it by filing a police complaint of his own. He then tweeted: ‘My lawyers are preparing cases to file in mumbai n delhi against Sunny Leone. So just wait n I promise to deport her from india very soon.’. It’s also turning into a bit of a mystery with reports about Leone claiming that her Twitter account had been hacked into. But you can be sure that it will all be forgotten. Because this is a storm in a teacup that no one really is very curious about.In Dad’s footsteps As Abhishek Bachchan turned 37 last week, it is perhaps time for him to look back. We all know his career is going nowhere. A long list of flops has followed him throughout his acting life. There has been a casualty over this — his not being able to play his own father’s role when remakes were made of Amitabh’s superhit movies. When Ram Gopal Varma was making his remake of Sholay, he had initially planned to cast Abhishek in the role of Jai. And then the movie ran into all sorts of complications and for a reason which has never been made public, Abhishek, suddenly was no longer in the project. Later, in an interview, Abhishek had once said that the role of his father that he liked the most and would want to play was from that of the movie Agneepath. When Karan Johar decided to remake Agneepath, some thought that he would cast Abhishek. But, perhaps looking at market value, he went for Hrithik Roshan. And he was proved right, when the movie went on to become a blockbuster. But now finally Abhishek might get to be his father. Reportedly, there is a remake being made of the 1980 Amitabh starrer Do Aur Do Paanch and Abhishek is finally getting to play one of his father’s roles in it. The movie also had Shashi Kapoor and that role is going to Bobby Deol, another actor who has been in flop territory for a while. With such a star cast, it’s going to take lots of good fortune for the movie to reap dividends.And now, a producerIt took at least a decade or two before the Khans went on from becoming actors to also producers. Likewise with Akshay Kumar, John Abraham and Saif Ali Khan. They had to slog for years before turning filmmakers. Ranbir Kapoor, in comparison, is a newbie. But it says something about his stature in the industry that he is now going to be producing his first movie. And it is not a regular flick. He is pairing up with the avant garde filmmaker Anurag Kashyap to produce Bombay Velvet, a series of tales from the middle decades of the last century illustrating how the metropolis got its present character. Ironically, Kashyap has for years been talking about the merits of making low-budget films. But he is going against his own grain with Bombay Velvet which is going to be a really expensive film pegged at over $15mn. Father’s Gangnam gift It’s so good to have a father with deep pockets and a load of experience in negotiating his way around Bollywood. That’s one way of explaining how Jackky Bhagnani has managed to stick on in the industry as a film star. If you are not in-the-know about Jackky then that’s not surprising. He has acted as the hero in three films and they were all produced by his father Vashu Bhagnani. Vashu made his name first as the producer of a number of Govinda superhits like Coolie Number 1, Hero Number 1, Bade Miyan Chhote Miyan, etc. When his son came of age, Vashu has bravely stuck with him. The first film he produced with Jackky was a flop. The second F.A.L.T.U, in fact, did above average business to everyone’s surprise. For the third film, Vashu got a high profile director, Sanjay Gadhvi, maker of the Dhoom series. But that was not nearly enough for the film to do any business. That debacle has not prevented a fourth film called Rangrezz in the works by the father for the son. One of the secrets of Vashu’s success as a producer has been the enormous amounts he throws into marketing a movie. And you saw a little of that talent recently when it was announced that he had bought for Jackky the rights to making the Bollywood version of Gangnam Style from Psy, the South Korean rapper whose original composition and dance steps became a global sensation. Apparently, the money involved to buy the rights was so large that negotiations broke up twice. But the Bhagnanis finally managed to swing the deal. No doubt it will be milked for every penny’s worth and will also add to the efforts to fortify Jackky’s presence in Bollywood. Send your feedback tobollywood.eye@gmail.com