Strained ties: Pallavi Sharda, left, has an ace up her sleeve to put Ranbir, seen here with girlfriend Katrina, in his place.

It’s been some time since Abhinav Kashyap burst on the scene as the director of the blockbuster Dabangg which sent Salman Khan’s superstardom into stratospheric heights. At the time, there had been rumours about how he had found it hard to deal with Salman’s whims. The reason he refused to direct the sequel is attributed to that. Dabangg 2 became a blockbuster, too, without him. It showed how stars are the lifeblood of a Hindi film and directors are, well, expendable. But his success had meant that even though Salman was off the list, Abhinav could still have his pick of other superstars. He had zoomed in on Ranbir Kapoor who agreed to act in his movie Besharam. It is slated to release next month and not just Ranbir but even his parents Rishi and Neetu are in it.
But there are once again rumours that Abhinav might be having issues with his leading man but with a twist this time. Whereas his differences with Salman were about the creative and temperament front, with Ranbir it has to do with women. The actress Abhinav chose to cast against Ranbir in Besharam was a newcomer Pallavi Sharda. There were stories floating around that Ranbir had actually wanted Katrina Kaif, his girlfriend, to play the role and on the sets the relationship between Ranbir and Pallavi was strained.
In fact, Pallavi was not there for an event to launch the movie to the media. This might look like great gumption from a newbie but she might just have an ace up her sleeve. Because, apparently, Abhinav and Pallavi are in a relationship.
Recently, he was even asked in an interview whether that was the reason he cast her in the role despite not being a known face. His reply was that such questions were never put to him when he had cast Sonakshi Sinha in Dabangg even though she was also a newcomer. But he did say that he and Pallavi were close friends.



The Suzanne mystery

Everytime Suzanne Roshan moves into her parents’ home it becomes news. There is a reason for it. When Hrithik Roshan had been smitten by Barbara Mori when they were shooting Kites, his wife had decided that enough was enough and gone to live with her parents.
It had taken some effort to patch up their marriage together and for the last few years they had been a picture of happiness. Recently, however, when Rakesh Roshan threw a bash to celebrate his 64th birthday, no-one could help not notice that Suzanne came with her parents almost like a guest and was only there for some time.
The gossip mill went in overdrive speculating that problems had again cropped up in the marriage. Her parents’ home is nearby leading to the question why was she making a cursory formal appearance. Meanwhile, there were also reports quoting sources close to Suzanne that the reason she was with her parents was because her father was ailing. The reason for an early exit from the party was said to be a flight to Paris that she had to catch. There could also be a third explanation for this flurry of rumours. That with Hrithik’s movie Krrish 3 slated to release soon, this might just be a public relations tactic.

Ekta goes bonkers dobaara

After the debacle of Once Upon Ay Time in Mumbai Dobaara, Ekta Kapoor seems to be holding everyone who is everyone in that movie responsible. First she was cheesed off with Akshay Kumar for not promoting the movie enough but then a truce was brokered and they started making good noises about each other.
Imran Khan, the second lead in that movie, was not so lucky. Like Akshay, Ekta also held him responsible for not using his star appeal to sufficiently market the movie. He was not aggressive enough in her reckoning.
Ekta was being a bit unrealistic about the whole issue because she was comparing him with Shah Rukh Khan, who used his superstardom to bulldoze Once Upon Ay Time for his Chennai Express.
But Shah Rukh has relentless energy and that is one of the reasons for his iconic status. To expect the stars in her movie to do the same was wishful thinking. In any case, immediately after it became clear that Once Upon Ay Time was a flop, it was made public that Imran would not be part of another Ekta movie called Milan Talkies in which he was the hero. Instead, it was revealed that Shahid Kapoor would replace him. Imran, who had been stoically silent on the whole affair finally, gave some sound bytes recently. He said there was no point in hanging on to the past. And while he had no issues with aggressive marketing, it had to make sense in the first place. From the tone and tenor of his statements, it seems as if it is he who decided to leave the movie. Meanwhile, Shahid has been telling mediapersons that he did not plot to get the role and had no hand in Imran not being in the film.

Parineeti pips cousin

So far there had really been no professional comparison or competition between Priyanka Chopra and Parineeti Chopra. They are cousins but Parineeti is just barely finding her feet in Bollywood whereas Priyanka has slugged her way to the top.
All that changed a little recently when two of their movies released simultaneously—Zanjeer and Shuddh Desi Romance. Priyanka’s Zanjeer was the remake of an iconic movie and a clearly bigger project. Shuddh Desi Romance was made at less than half the budget of Zanjeer.
But when the initially box office revenues were known, it showed exactly the opposite returns. Shuddh Desi had managed to rake in twice Zanjeer’s takings. Almost immediately people started judging Priyanka against Parineeti. What must be rankling Priyanka even further is that not just commercially, even critically her cousin’s movie got more accolades than her own.

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