Rani-Abhishek in Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna

This monsoon, audiences are getting to see more stars on the screen than the ones obfuscated in the sky by the clouds. Those whopping star-crammed multistarrers that were the order of the Friday in the 1970s are back in action. And leading the bright pack is Vishal Bhardwaj’s Omkara which stars ? hold your breath ? Ajay, Kareena, Viveik, Bipasha, Konkona, Naseeruddin and Saif.

This has got to be the biggest multistarrer since Ramesh Sippy’s Sholay in 1975. “And let’s hope my Omkara, releasing this month, is as big a hit as Sholay,” chuckles Vishal. “The profusion of stars in my film was completely dictated by the script. Every actor justifies his or character.” But the fact remains, Vishal made his previous film Maqbool with no stars except Tabu. If Maqbool hadn’t worked so wonderfully Vishal would have cast art-house actors once again in Omkara. In fact, Akshay Kumar had turned down Maqbool saying he didn’t find the desi version of Macbeth heroic enough. “That’s very true. I still haven’t forgotten. I guess my script justifies the stars only because I could get them,” admits Vishal.

Preity-SRK in Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna

One director who has never had a problem getting stars is Karan Johar. And, boy, does he cram them in! If his last film, Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham... reads like a Who’s Who of the film industry, Karan’s Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna, due in August, has everyone from Amitabh to Abhishek Bachchan in its roomy frames. “I don’t deny that my film has the biggest stars in the industry. Not just the two biggest stars, Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan, but also Rani, Preity, Abhishek. The fact is, everyone goes to the cinema to see their favourite stars, the more the merrier. I’m lucky to have so many friends who are major stars.”

Ajay-Kareena in Omkara

Amusing as it may sound, Karan’s former associate, Nikhil Advani, has even more stars in his new directorial undertaking, Salaam-e-Ishq, than Vishal’s and Karan’s films put together! “See, my film weaves a large number of different love stories together in one package. For every love story I needed a different couple. Whether it’s Salman and Priyanka, or John and Vidya, each pair is perfectly placed in the pastiche.”