Actor R Madhavan is currently busy with his under-production project titled Guru En Aalu which is a remake of the hit 1997 Bollywood film Yes Boss, directed by Aziz Mirza and starring Shah Rukh Khan, Juhi Chawla and Aditya Panscholi. Madhavan is essaying SRK’s role in the Tamil film.
"I’m quite excited to be a part of the remake. I thoroughly loved the film. Shah Rukh was amazing in Yes Boss. He had so much energy and was jumping here and there with so much ease. He was so charged up that he stood out in the film. It will be quite a task to match his efforts," Madhavan told After Hrs.
Yes Boss narrated the story of Rahul, a middle-class youth with high ambitions of striking it rich in the corporate world. He’s seen quite willing to bend his ethics to prove his loyalty to his boss, Siddharth who he sees as his key to scaling the ladders of success. To please Siddharth, he has to do his dirty jobs like bringing girls for Siddharth to exercise his not insubstantial charms on.
The film reaches its climax when matters become complicated when Siddharth’s eyes fall on Seema, a girl Rahul secretly loves. Seema too wishes to take the shortcut to success by serenading a rich man. Initially she falls for Siddharth’s charms and even believes his sob stories when she comes to know he’s married. But then as his devious ways are revealed to her and she finds her heart being drawn to the simple Rahul, she seeks to escape from Siddharth’s clutches.
We quizzed Madhavan if the filmmakers are changing anything from the original plot.
"The story entirely remains the same but yes there are certain things that need to be changed to suit the south Indian sentiments. We have added a little more humour to the script. I guess people down here love lots of humour. Basically very minor things have been changed and the spirit of the original has been kept intact," he says.
The film which has seen its release date being pushed back from 2007 is currently being directed by Selvah. Actors Mamta Mohandas, Abbas, Brinda Parekh and Vivek are also a part of the film.
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Friday, August 29, 2008
Mallika Sherawat's 'hut' near Kovalam beach gets ready
Bollywood's hot and happening actress Mallika Sherawat's dream hut is being built at Vizhinjam near the well-known Kovalam beach in Kerala.
G. Shankar, the chief of Habitat Technology Group who is working on the hut, told IANS that in two month's time it would be ready to move in.
'Mallika is expected to arrive here in the next few days and give the final approval to complete her home,' said Shankar.
'This is a one hall and one bedroom hut and built with mud and overlooks the majestic Arabian sea near Vizhinjam. I'm sorry I can't reveal the exact location. The roof of the hut is yet to be decided and it would be finalised once she is here. Most probably it would be one with bamboo and tiles,' added Shankar.
Reports indicate that the hut is coming up on a small hill top and one has to reach the place on foot. There is no road for cars.
The builders have taken abundant caution with the design because according to the coastal zone regulation rules, no permanent construction should take place within a prescribed distance from the sea.
Mallika featured in two recent releases - 'Ugly Aur Pagli' and 'Maan Gaye Mughall-E-Azam'.
G. Shankar, the chief of Habitat Technology Group who is working on the hut, told IANS that in two month's time it would be ready to move in.
'Mallika is expected to arrive here in the next few days and give the final approval to complete her home,' said Shankar.
'This is a one hall and one bedroom hut and built with mud and overlooks the majestic Arabian sea near Vizhinjam. I'm sorry I can't reveal the exact location. The roof of the hut is yet to be decided and it would be finalised once she is here. Most probably it would be one with bamboo and tiles,' added Shankar.
Reports indicate that the hut is coming up on a small hill top and one has to reach the place on foot. There is no road for cars.
The builders have taken abundant caution with the design because according to the coastal zone regulation rules, no permanent construction should take place within a prescribed distance from the sea.
Mallika featured in two recent releases - 'Ugly Aur Pagli' and 'Maan Gaye Mughall-E-Azam'.
Chiranjeevi launches 'Praja Rajyam' amid huge fanfare
Strangely, the biggest political launch in the state since N T Rama Rao's in 1983 began on a quiet note.
With a DVD of Chiranjeevi's film Stalin being screened on the big screen on the dais to keep the crowd in good humour, they hardly reacted when their 'annaiya' made his first appearance, typically bashing up some bad guys.
However, two hours later, about 7 lakh people roared to real life Chiranjeevi when he thundered about delivering social justice and unveiled his Praja Rajyam. Not surprisingly it sent shivers down the Congress and TDP camps and placed Chiranjeevi clearly as a serious chief ministerial candidate.
To Chiranjeevi's credit, the prolonged build-up to his political initiation did live up to its expectation. After having kept everyone waiting and guessing about whether and when he would enter the political scene for the last several months, the simple press conference announcing his political intention followed by Tuesday's meeting seem to herald the semblance of a mass social movement.
"This is a political tsunami, and chief minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy and opposition TDP leader N Chandrababu Naidu will be swept away by its current," claimed T Rammohan from Guntur who said he quit the Congress to join Chiranjeevi.
For those who had dubbed Chiranjeevi as a mere film star, his speech was full of content. He spoke of how the government was selling away land (and thus mortgaging the future) for balancing the budget, how fertile cultivable land was being given away to SEZs, how the Naxalite problem arose from poverty and how he would not mind granting Telangana if the region could not be developed otherwise.
He also displayed a marked Left orientation and though his speech was shorn off great oratory, he used symbolism with great effect to demolish the policies of the present government.
But true to his please-all image, the megastar did not attack anyone by name. The potraits of Mahatma Gandhi, B R Ambedkar, Mother Teresa and Jyotiba Phule on the background of the huge stage gave the message clearly about where his sympathies lay.
Tuesday in this temple town dawned to a huge influx of people by the thousands making it to the meeting in buses, lorries, jeeps and by foot.
By 10 am, all roads leading to the city were packed with Chiru's men, and by 3.30 pm, about three to four lakh people had converged at the meeting. Some wore masks of the actor, some carried flags and some others even carried small cutouts.
Although Tirupati has members of Chiranjeevi's Kapu caste in sizable numbers, such a mammoth gathering could not have been made only by its members.
The actor seems to have inspired many outside his community, for it was a combination of several weaker sections, Dalits, Muslims and backward classes that could have led to this large crowd.
The Chiru camp was upbeat over the attendance, and are now insisting that their leader is clearly on the way to the chief ministerial gaddi.
The politician did not directly attack the Congress and the TDP, but by clearing declaring that the current set-up has only spawned social injustice, he has made it clear that they are his main targets.
Now that his party has a name, a flag and a song, how he takes the next step would be crucial for the extent of his success. This would include setting up of a party organisation.
If indeed the people are with him, as perhaps indicated by the numbers at Tuesday's meeting, then the magnificent fireworks at the venue has a clear message for everyone: August 26 is a political and social milestone in the history of Andhra Pradesh.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Amitabh Bachchan's Unforgettable Tour
Amitabh Bachchan's Unforgettable Tour: Bollywood's bid to break out of the home market
Bollywood's first family is to give world domination a shot with a tour of 28 cities across five continents in what is being billed as “probably the biggest stage show to hit the Earth”.
Amitabh Bachchan, the Indian actor known as “Big B”, his son Abhishek and Abhishek's wife Aishwarya Rai, the sub-continent's most bankable female lead, are to star in a heady three-hour cocktail of Hindi song, up-tempo dance and Bollywood bling.
The Unforgettable Tour, which kicks off in Toronto on July 18 and will reach the O2 Arena in London on August 24, will be Bachchan's first live outing in nearly two decades. “It is strenuous, but the love of the fans is so strong, we decided on this,” he said.
The production has a multimillion-pound budget and a cast of 150. The music will come from India's leading film composers, the dance moves from Bollywood's best-known choreographer, while Shilpa Shetty, known to British audiences for her controversial appearance on Celebrity Big Brother, will appear in the London leg.
The project underscores the global ambitions of India's film industry but it also reveals how Bollywood is desperate to break out of the financial limitations of its domestic market. Big B's tour includes dates in countries as far apart as the Netherlands, Kuwait and Singapore.
It is a testimony both to his appeal and to the globalisation of the entertainment business, a process that has accelerated as rival movie moguls in Bombay and Los Angeles look to break into the others' markets.
Over the course of four decades Bachchan, 65, has starred in more than 130 films that have grossed more than £450 million at the box office, making him by far Bollywood's biggest moneyspinner. John Digwal, the promoter of the British leg, said: “We're not talking about a superstar. Not a megastar. This man, he's a legend.” However, cinema tickets in India are sold at rock-bottom prices that deliver slender returns, even with sales of three billion a year. With this in mind, Bollywood producers are aiming for rich Western audiences.
UTV, one of Bollywood's biggest film-makers, has deals in place with stars such as Will Smith and has started making films in the United States. Its head, Ronnie Screwvala, said that Indian producers were having to adapt to increasingly cosmopolitan domestic tastes, something he expected to win over audiences overseas. “From younger Indian audiences there's been a call for more genres,” he said. “The traditional quaint family drama with song and dance no longer cuts it.”
Live shows may also offer Bollywood the opportunity to recoup the large losses suffered on a recent string of big-budget flops in India. Stars such as Kareena Kapoor are thought to command fees of up to £500,000 for a single evening of live dancing. This compares favourably with the box office retirns for her latest film, Tashun, which featured a slew of Indian superstars but made only about £825,000 in its first week.
Hollywood is just as keen to gain a foothold in India, where forecasts predict that the market, driven by an increasingly prosperous middle class, will grow by 18 per cent a year until 2012.
It is likely, however, that any American assault on emerging Asian markets will be largely funded with Indian money. It emerged last month that Steven Spielberg was in talks over a funding deal with Anil Ambani, India's second-richest man.
Mr Ambani has already pledged to pay for a roster of Hollywood A-listers, including George Clooney, Nicholas Cage, Tom Hanks and Brad Pitt, to the tune of $1 billion as the American industry faces a funding crunch caused by the global credit crisis.
Bollywood's first family is to give world domination a shot with a tour of 28 cities across five continents in what is being billed as “probably the biggest stage show to hit the Earth”.
Amitabh Bachchan, the Indian actor known as “Big B”, his son Abhishek and Abhishek's wife Aishwarya Rai, the sub-continent's most bankable female lead, are to star in a heady three-hour cocktail of Hindi song, up-tempo dance and Bollywood bling.
The Unforgettable Tour, which kicks off in Toronto on July 18 and will reach the O2 Arena in London on August 24, will be Bachchan's first live outing in nearly two decades. “It is strenuous, but the love of the fans is so strong, we decided on this,” he said.
The production has a multimillion-pound budget and a cast of 150. The music will come from India's leading film composers, the dance moves from Bollywood's best-known choreographer, while Shilpa Shetty, known to British audiences for her controversial appearance on Celebrity Big Brother, will appear in the London leg.
The project underscores the global ambitions of India's film industry but it also reveals how Bollywood is desperate to break out of the financial limitations of its domestic market. Big B's tour includes dates in countries as far apart as the Netherlands, Kuwait and Singapore.
It is a testimony both to his appeal and to the globalisation of the entertainment business, a process that has accelerated as rival movie moguls in Bombay and Los Angeles look to break into the others' markets.
Over the course of four decades Bachchan, 65, has starred in more than 130 films that have grossed more than £450 million at the box office, making him by far Bollywood's biggest moneyspinner. John Digwal, the promoter of the British leg, said: “We're not talking about a superstar. Not a megastar. This man, he's a legend.” However, cinema tickets in India are sold at rock-bottom prices that deliver slender returns, even with sales of three billion a year. With this in mind, Bollywood producers are aiming for rich Western audiences.
UTV, one of Bollywood's biggest film-makers, has deals in place with stars such as Will Smith and has started making films in the United States. Its head, Ronnie Screwvala, said that Indian producers were having to adapt to increasingly cosmopolitan domestic tastes, something he expected to win over audiences overseas. “From younger Indian audiences there's been a call for more genres,” he said. “The traditional quaint family drama with song and dance no longer cuts it.”
Live shows may also offer Bollywood the opportunity to recoup the large losses suffered on a recent string of big-budget flops in India. Stars such as Kareena Kapoor are thought to command fees of up to £500,000 for a single evening of live dancing. This compares favourably with the box office retirns for her latest film, Tashun, which featured a slew of Indian superstars but made only about £825,000 in its first week.
Hollywood is just as keen to gain a foothold in India, where forecasts predict that the market, driven by an increasingly prosperous middle class, will grow by 18 per cent a year until 2012.
It is likely, however, that any American assault on emerging Asian markets will be largely funded with Indian money. It emerged last month that Steven Spielberg was in talks over a funding deal with Anil Ambani, India's second-richest man.
Mr Ambani has already pledged to pay for a roster of Hollywood A-listers, including George Clooney, Nicholas Cage, Tom Hanks and Brad Pitt, to the tune of $1 billion as the American industry faces a funding crunch caused by the global credit crisis.
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