Dual duel
The Shahid Kapur-Amrita Rao pair made magic in Ishq Vishq. But their next films Vaah Life Ho To Aisi and Shikhar failed to fire at the box-office. But now the young romantic duo has been cast again in Vivah, being made by Sooraj Barjatya. The film trade is quite excited about this film and expects it to do well in the Indian market. Strangely, though, Shahid Kapur’s movies with his real life love Kareena Kapoor have not done well. Neither Fida nor 36 China Town stirred up the box-office. So will Amrita Rao help Shahid’s career again?
News channel group
For sometime now the top brass at news channels in India has been keen to collaborate. A beginning was made at a meeting of the news chan-nel operators in Mumbai last week. Among other things, a proposal to set up a body exclusive to news broadcasters was presented. An insider, present at the meeting, says that though the news broadcasters would continue to be members of the Indian Broadcasting Foundation, they were keen to create an additional body to give voice to the concerns of the TV news industry since the issues they faced differ from those confronting the entertainment channels. News channel operators feel that content regulation invariably means censorship in their case. “Things like going ‘live’ or doing ‘sting operations’ are peculiar to our industry. And it is we who bear the brunt of political pressure,” says the insider.
His father’s son
Did you know that Sanjay Dutt could sing? Well, he recently recorded a song for a non-film album with the legendary Asha Bhosle. Sanju baba sang a song called Aapke dil mein thodi si jagah chahiye with Asha Bhosle 40 years after she sang a duet with Sanju’s father Sunil Dutt in the film Yeh Raaste Hain Pyar Ke. Probably the irony was quite touching for the younger Dutt who was very keen to do the video. The handsome hulk did not charge a penny for either singing or appearing in the music video.
Bharat Shah bails out Zamaanat
Film financier Bharat Shah is helping out S. Raamanathan to release his Zamaanat. The film was shot almost a decade ago — when Arshad Warsi had just entered the film industry and Karishma Kapoor was seeing Abhishek Bachchan. However, it was only last year that Raamanathan managed to shoot some final scenes. Finally, with funds from Bharat Shah, he will be able to release the film in Mumbai on November 3. Of course, there may be some discrepancies in the appearance of the characters who may be looking different after 10 years. Says Raamanathan: “It is an old film but no frame looks stale. Amitabh looks his age in every scene. It looks like a film made six months ago.” The delay, the Bombay to Goa director feels, is a blessing in disguise as Arshad Warsi is a star after Munnabhai M.B.B.S. and Lage Raho Munnabhai.
Life after Red FM
Don’t think the India Today group that successfully ran RED FM in New Delhi and Calcutta got out of the radio business completely when it sold it to a consor-tium of media and finance companies. Radio Today, the company that won seven radio frequencies in its last bid, is currently in the process of making its business plan, thinking of brand names and recru-iting people. It has also hired a COO from New Jersey — an Indian who ran an Internet radio station there.
