The battle between Raees and Kaabil, both of which released on the same date last Wednesday, is doing predictably well. Shah Rukh Khan’s superstar prowess led to Raees getting the biggest opening of January’s extended Republic Day weekend, beating even the Salman Khan movie Jai Ho, which had released three years ago in this same slot. Likewise, the first day collections of over Rs20crore was far ahead of Akshay Kumar’s Airlift, which had also released a year back this time.
Shah Rukh must be pleased though it has to be mentioned that Rs20crore is almost half of what Happy New Year, another Shah Rukh movie, had made on its first day. It is also about Rs10crore less than what Dangal had managed to rake in on its first day. This is not necessarily because Raees is doing worse than them.
Rather it is the result of Kaabil, which stars Hrithik Roshan, also releasing simultaneously. So whereas Dangal got almost all the theatres to screen it, Raees had to be satisfied with 60 percent of them with the rest going to Kaabil. This is also something that has made Rakesh Roshan, the producer of Kaabil, extremely unhappy. He now alleges that distributors, who mediate between producers and theatre owners, had promised him 50 percent of the screens and that he had been misled by them. You can’t blame them too. Hrithik Roshan might be big but a Shah Rukh movie is always a more profitable option.
 When it comes to critical acclaim, it has been a mixed bag. The acting of both Shah Rukh and Hrithik have been appreciated but the movies themselves were said to be flawed. Raees had an interesting backdrop and fine detailing but unashamedly kowtowed to making the character of Shah Rukh larger than life thus weakening the story.
Kaabil, on the other hand, had a somewhat ludicrous plot but managed to remain barely interesting because Hrithik gave a great performance. The movie had a tepid start at the box office and might be lucky to pick itself and end up as a hit. Raees, on the other hand, despite its blemishes, is hitting the right notes with the audience. It has all the makings of a super-hit but will be nowhere close to the league of Dangal which might become the first movie to break the Rs400crore barrier.

Deserved or not
Harshvardhan Kapoor has to his credit one movie, Mirzya, that most people didn’t watch and the few who did weren’t really very impressed. However, as the son of Anil Kapoor, he comes from an elite Bollywood dynasty and that can leave one feeling somewhat entitled.
Recently when one of the biggest Bollywood awards given by a film magazine was announced, the best male debut actor went to Diljit Dosanjh, a relative unknown, for his role in the critically acclaimed Udta Punjab. Harshvardhan however said in a newspaper interview said that the award should have been given to a newcomer and not to someone who has already acted in a number of Punjabi movies.
Dosanjh, in turn, when asked to react gave examples of a number past winners in that category who had acting experience elsewhere, like the Tamil star Dhanush and the Pakistani actor Fawad Khan.
Harshvardhan later made peace by tweeting to Dosanjh, ‘Love you to sir, have lots of respect for you and your body of work sorry if I said anything that came out wrong’.

Candid rewards 
After a long time, Bobby Deol found himself in the news again. This time it was very good publicity. Usually Bobby is not someone who gets a lot of attention from the online crowd, except when it comes to laughing at some of the parody Twitter accounts that are created in his name.
But a movie of his, Poster Boys, is going to be out sometime this year. It was in that context that Bobby decided to give an interview to an online magazine. What surprised everyone and got him such plaudits was his honesty in answering questions about his own failure.
He admitted to missing the bus when the tastes of the Hindi movie audience changed and became more sophisticated after the end of the 1990s. He had then been stuck with some really bad movies which bombed badly. And he did try to get good work but everyone thought he had an attitude problem which he claims was just not true.
He said he was ‘starving’ for work and that he was not fixated on being the hero, even character roles would do. He also spoke of how he had organised a production company to take on Jab We Met after approaching its director Imtiaz Ali to work with him. He had mediated to get Kareena Kapoor in it and she had first said no.
Out of the blue he had learnt that he was no longer in the movie and Kareena’s then boyfriend Shahid Kapoor had replaced him.  And again, with Highway too, Imtiaz had first planned to do it with Bobby and then he had been dropped!

Separate lives?
Amitabh Bachchan once again became subject of a minor controversy thanks to his association with Amar Singh, a politician who once upon a time was always seen together with him.
It was thanks to him that the Bachchans got close to Mulayam Singh Yadav, leader of the Samajwadi Party, which currently rules the state of Uttar Pradesh. Jaya Bachchan, Amitabh’s wife, also got nominated by the party to become a member of Parliament in the Upper House. Some years back Singh had fallen out with Yadav and the Bachchans had then decided to not sever their links with the political party.
Subsequently, Singh got back into the good books of Yadav but recently became the centre of a nasty rift in the party but this time he was opposed by Yadav’s son Akhilesh, who is also the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh.
Once again, Singh did not find any support from the Bachchans. Perhaps because of that he recently made a public statement that Amitabh and Jaya were living separately much before he had come to know them and that he couldn’t be held responsible for every rift. He also hinted that all was not well between Jaya and her daughter-in-law Aishwarya Rai Bachchan.

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