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Via Bollywood Hungama https://ift.tt/fuxLVbIBhumi Pednekar is now the face of 10 brands including the likes of global cosmetic and women’s hygiene companies! She has now been signed on by the legacy brand Dettol to be the face of their women’s soap to promote the importance of hygiene!
A trade source reveals, “Bhumi has become one of the most trusted faces in India today, given her powerful performance in credible movies as well as her selfless work towards educating people about climate change. She is the most woke celebrity of our times and this is why brands, that are wanting to speak to today’s generation with campaigns that resonate with the youth of today, have all flocked to Bhumi.”
As a brand ambassador, Bhumi aligns with brands that have a reduced carbon footprint, that has been the tool of people’s voice in India or with brands that have effectively contributed to society. Dettol has now signed her for two years!
On the work front, Bhumi will be seen in films like Anubhav Sinha’s Bheed, Ajay Bahl’s The Ladykiller, Sudhir Mishra’s Afwaah, Gauri Khan produced Bhakshak, Mudassar Aziz’s Mere Husband Ki Biwi and a couple of more unannounced projects that will push the bar for cinema.
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Via Bollywood Hungama https://ift.tt/E8uP5I2To say that Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan is back with a bang would be an understatement. His new release Pathaan has been breaking box office records. The film has crossed Rs. 700 crores worldwide in just nine days. The film also stars Deepika Padukone and John Abraham alongside Ashutosh Rana and Dimple Kapadia. As the film industry celebrates the megastar and the success of the film, the foreign media is also taking a keen interest as the film is making waves in international territories and the box office. But a headline in a foreign publication has irked fans in India.
An American journalist wrote an article related to Pathaan for the website The Wrap. The headline read, ‘India’s Tom Cruise Shah Rukh Khan May Have Just Saved Bollywood With His Blockbuster Pathaan’. The piece talked about the return of SRK and reviving the industry. But this didn’t go down well with fans who were definitely upset with the comparison and the disrespect towards SRK who has been in the film industry for 30 years. Check out what the netizens had to say.
India’s Tom Cruise, #ShahRukhKhan, May Have Just Saved Bollywood With His Blockbuster #Pathaan via @TheWrap by @ScottMendelson https://t.co/kqEAsaWf7s
(much thanks to @SiddhantAdlakha and @meJat32)— Scott Mendelson (@ScottMendelson) February 3, 2023
That there are similarities in how Pathaan boosted Bollywood and marked SRK’s comeback just as Top Gun 2 helped save American theaters and reassert Cruise’s stardom. SRK is still where Cruise was in the 1990s, where he doesn’t just have to make action movies to draw crowds.
— Scott Mendelson (@ScottMendelson) February 3, 2023
if you can’t write an article without reducing indian actors to a white actor, then don’t write the article. it’s as simple as that. shah rukh khan is known as shah rukh khan all over the globe. not “india’s tom cruise” lol.
— Pramit (@pramitheus) February 3, 2023
I know you’re just trying to provide context but as a white American who hadn’t seen a single Bollywood movie until 2019, Shah Rukh is so much more than Tom Cruise. There is no Hollywood equivalent.
— ♡SRK♡paradigm (@SRKparadigm) February 3, 2023
The disrespect!
Tell me when Tom Cruise has danced to complex choreography on top of a moving train with the powerful Malaika Arora. I’ll consider then.#SRK???? https://t.co/OnkJUBTQde— AGuyinDCity|എഗൈഇൻദിസിറ്റി (@aguyindcity) February 4, 2023
“shah rukh khan is india’s tom cruise” is reductive and so, so wrong ????
i understand the inherent urge to compare because of how top gun maverick performed. & that need to correlate for american audiences is also a larger issue we gotta address. https://t.co/un2ndTBkEs
— saloni gajjar (@saloni_g) February 3, 2023
Helmed by Siddharth Anand, Pathaan is the highest-grossing film of YRF’s Spy Universe! Meanwhile, Shah Rukh Khan has two more releases this year – Atlee Kumar’s Jawan releasing in June 2023 followed by Rajkumar Hirani’s Dunki in December 2023.
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Via Bollywood Hungama https://ift.tt/E8uP5I2On January 24, 1992, Rajiv Rai released his magnum opus, Vishwatma, in cinemas. The film had an ensemble star cast, featuring Sunny Deol, Naseeruddin Shah, Chunky Panday, Divya Bharti, Sonam, Amrish Puri, Jyotsna Singh and Gulshan Grover. The film is remembered today for its action and massy scenes and of course the cult song ‘Saat Samandar Paar’. On Vishwatma’s 31st anniversary, Rajiv Rai exclusively spoke to Bollywood Hungama about the film, his experience of shooting it in Kenya and a lot more.
In Vishwatma (1992), Mohra (1994) and Gupt (1997), the image of the Ambe Ma idol from Shree Mangal Mandir, Nairobi, Kenya is shown in the beginning. Vishwatma was also shot in Kenya. Could you tell us about this connection?
That’s a good question! My co-producer Ajay Shah was associated with that temple in some way. I used to visit it regularly. In fact, I even got married in the same temple! Though my marriage broke up, I must say that the temple is very auspicious and it made me feel like I was in India. It didn’t give you a feeling that it was located in some foreign country. Hence, I showed its glimpse in the beginning out of respect for Ambe Ma and my co-producer. There was no real calculation behind it. It was just one of those things that came from my heart and I did it in those films that Ajay Shah co-produced with me.
How did you decide to shoot Vishwatma in Kenya? This was probably the first Bollywood film which was shot in the African country…
I went to Kenya for Sharad Patel’s daughter’s wedding; he’s a profound filmmaker – he made Rise And Fall Of Idi Amin (1981) – and a very dear family friend. Their son Raju Patel was also a very close friend of mine who made several Hollywood movies including Bachelor Party (1984) starring Tom Hanks. Unfortunately, Raju Patel passed away at a young age due to cancer complications. The wedding was my first visit to Kenya and when I returned to Mumbai, I decided to shoot there. Fortunately, I also had other family friends who owned hotels and we shot in their properties. The group is called Sarova Group of Hotels and it still exists in Kenya and the United Kingdom. That’s when I also met my co-producer, Ajay Shah, who was also politically connected in the country and a very nice gentleman. Sharad Patel, meanwhile, helped me with the technical equipment etc. I hired his lights, generators and cameras. Due to these connections, I was motivated to shoot in Kenya. Back in those days, it was very difficult to shoot in foreign lands because the government would not provide foreign exchange money. So, we had to really plan this film very well and ensure our paperwork was legally in order so that we were able to import the film back to India without complications. Of course, this took a lot of time and energy but it was all worth it in the end.
Despite these issues, it was convenient to shoot in Kenya. I loved the locations and the people of the country. Somebody may have shot a film before me in Kenya. I am not sure. But definitely, nobody has gone and shot a whole film there. As mentioned before, I had many connections and I am indebted to all of them. They were very helpful. It was heartening to see how Indians outside the country help fellow Indians. Vishwatma set a big example of it. My mesmerizing experience opened doors for other Indians to shoot abroad. Later, filmmakers began shooting anywhere and everywhere where they could get hold of subsidies. The United Kingdom today is a very apt example. But the poor and third-world African countries could not afford to give subsidies. So, you needed to go there, find your connections and get your discounts!
Was Bubbles Disco, where the iconic ‘Saat Samandar Paar’ was shot, also found through connections?
Yes. Every location that you see in the film was made accessible thanks to my co-producers and friends there. Ketan Somaia owned Bubbles Discotheque and the casino there. So that was made available to us. Back in those days, it was difficult to make a grand Bollywood film abroad if you didn’t have personal connections.
‘Saat Samandar Paar’ was also used in Sajid Nadiadwala’s Kick (2014) as a tribute to Divya Bharti…
Yes. Unfortunately, and laughingly, nobody took permission from me. But it’s okay as they are all friends of mine and I didn’t mind. But today, I am trying to make it clear that you cannot use a song of mine in another film without my permission.
In fact, a lot of young generation actors don’t know who I am. They ask me, ‘Who are you?’. I mean, it’s okay for me. I don’t have an ego and I don’t care. People don’t want to work with older filmmakers or directors. And that’s why most of the films which are coming out are pretty sad and bad as we are not working with experienced people in Bollywood. The younger directors don’t have the training ground in making good films. At times, the directors go haywire and become self-indulgent. That doesn’t help and hence, many of them take the support of the OTT platforms to release their films. We didn’t have OTT platforms in our days. We had to make the films work and make the audiences sit in their seats!
Yes, and you did. In fact, while seeing the film again, I realized that Sunny Deol actually was hanging from the moving aeroplane in the climax…
Yes. There were no special effects or cables in Vishwatma. The films in the 80s and 90s were real. Even in my upcoming film, Zora, everything is real. There are no special effects except for the gunshots where we had to put some effects and that’s about it. When you show fake action, people can guess it’s not real and it’s really not working out that well.
You gave commercial roles to Naseeruddin Shah. Was it difficult to make him dance in songs?
There’s nothing difficult when it comes to Naseeruddin Shah. You just need to do things very quickly with him. You cannot test a good actor’s patience. Good actors like him don’t require retakes because their first takes are the very best. I had to keep that in mind while I was working with Naseeruddin Shah and doing his fight or dance sequences. But I didn’t have any problems. He adapted to everything that was required to be done in all my films. He’s a very focused and hardworking actor and I would say one of the best actors in India, then and now.
Rarely does he essay such roles and with you, he did it thrice…
I had seen all of his films. I am an ardent art film watcher. Back in those days, I used to look up to the movies made by Shyam Benegal, Satyajit Ray etc. There was a fabulous parallel cinema movement at that time from where I learnt a lot. I admired it more than the commercial cinema (laughs)! Technically, they were progressive. They were so good with sound and photography. They never left the sync sound at that time. They took a lot of effort into the all technical aspects of the film. Even though the films were a little slow-paced, the casting would be fabulous and the storytelling had a different texture to it. So, the art cinema was a training ground for me. I realize I am saying this for the first time in an interview!
So, I had seen all the works of Naseeruddin Shah and I thought it’ll be a good change to take this actor and put him in a different avatar, thereby getting a different audience to watch him. The commercial audience was not watching art and parallel cinema back in those days. I am glad I did so and it paid off really well. And then everybody started taking actors from art cinema.
Did you visit cinema halls to check audience reaction?
I rarely went to the theatres to hear the hooting or the claps to pat myself on the back. Also, I would have seen my film a hundred times and it would be boring for me to see it again. Whether they were burning the cinema down or screaming with joy, whatever the reactions may have been to my various films, I didn’t check. Those days, there used to be adverse reactions, like seatein tod di or audiences throwing money on the screen. Once I get the commercial results and know what has happened with the film, I move on. However, I did see every other Hindi film with the audiences and got their reactions. I do that even today. If you want to see me, you can do so at a multiplex, where I’ll be watching the first day first show of the latest release!
Also Read: Sunny Deol starring 2001 blockbuster, Gadar: Ek Prem Katha to re-release on August 11
The post 31 Years of Vishwatma EXCLUSIVE: Rajiv Rai SLAMS rumours that Madhuri Dixit and Ayesha Jhulka were offered Divya Bharti’s role: “These are rumours. If they were offered, why wouldn’t they do it?” appeared first on Bollywood Hungama.
Via Bollywood Hungama https://ift.tt/E8uP5I2Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan returned to the big screen in a lead role with Pathaan and the film has simply demolished the box office. It has crossed Rs. 700 crores worldwide in simply 9 days and is smashing records. The film stars Deepika Padukone and John Abraham alongside Ashutosh Rana and Dimple Kapadia. As the film industry celebrates the megastar’s return and the success of the film, people can’t help but talk about the meta moments. Salman Khan makes a cameo in the movie and it totally turns into a screaming contest in theatres when the two superstars, fondly known as Karan – Arjun of Indian cinema, come together for an action-packed sequence. Interestingly, there’s also a post-credit scene with them which definitely creates a fun moment.
Interestingly, the post-credit scene wasn’t written in the script but was added by Aditya Chopra. It was meant to be added somewhere in the train sequence scene. But when Uday Chopra saw the edit, he recommended it be added after the film. “The last scene when Shah Rukh and Salman are talking, when I saw the film even, I was taken aback because I hadn’t written it! It wasn’t there in my script draft. That Adi sir did. When he had thought of it, it was added somewhere else in the, right after the train sequence. But I think when they were discussing the edit, Uday (Chopra) came up with the idea that this might work in the end! So it was that collaborative,” Shridhar Raghavan explained to Indian Express.
Talking about the torture sequence in the train and the idea of the back story of every team member of the Pathaan’s squad, he added, “In the trailer there’s a torture sequence that Shah Rukh goes through—maybe they’ll release it later on YouTube—and in the film there were many scenes which we wrote on paper but never shot. Every character in the JOCR squad has a huge back story, which we wrote. We then thought we don’t require it in this particular film, but it was important for us because someday when we’ll do something else with these characters, it’ll also help the actors because they’d know these characters inside out. It was great fun.”
Helmed by Siddharth Anand, Pathaan is the highest grossing film of YRF’s Spy Universe! With this insane result of this film, all films of YRF’s Spy Universe – Ek Tha Tiger, Tiger Zinda Hai, War & Pathaan are blockbusters!
Meanwhile, Shah Rukh Khan has two more releases this year – Atlee Kumar’s Jawan releasing in June 2023 followed by Rajkumar Hirani’s Dunki in December 2023.
The post Pathaan: Shah Rukh Khan – Salman Khan’s post-credit scene was Aditya and Uday Chopra’s idea, says writer Shridhar Raghavan appeared first on Bollywood Hungama.
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