Not Without My Brother

For senior filmmaker Rakesh Roshan, family comes first. It is a given that any film he directs or produces will be scored by his brother Rajesh Roshan. While their collaborations in the past have yielded successful results, more recent soundtracks composed by Rajesh Roshan have been at best mediocre successes. The songs of both Krrish and Krrish 3 are evidence of that sad truth. Still, Rakesh Roshan reportedly does not take any criticism of his brother’s music well. “The music will grow on you,” is his usual refrain for anyone who points out that Rajesh’s songs haven’t turned out to be the chartbusters they were hoping they’d be.

Insiders are saying Kaabil director Sanjay Gupta, who is known to have a good ear for tunes, was not thrilled that Rajesh Roshan would be scoring his film. Gupta, however, was in no position to argue, with Rakesh exercising his producer’s rights firmly. Unit members reveal that Gupta was keen to have at least two special promotional videos filmed for the movie, and for which he hoped to employ talented bands and composers that he’d previously worked with. But the suggestion was shot down by his producer, who assured him that Rajesh was up to the challenge of delivering these additional tracks too.

A Friend in Need

Shah Rukh Khan’s single-scene cameo in Karan Johar’s Ae Dil Hai Mushkil may not have come as a surprise to the filmmaker’s fans. After all, Shah Rukh has worked frequently with Karan, who in turn has often said he owes his career to the actor for agreeing to star in his debut directorial project, Kuch Kuch Hota Hai. But ask members of Karan’s crew and they’ll tell you SRK was never meant to feature in the new film. It was fortuitous that he ended up doing the cameo.

Story goes that it was Saif Ali Khan who was originally cast in the role of Aishwarya’s ex-husband, and Saif filmed the scene in London with the other actors. But on the unit’s return to India after wrapping production, while looking at the finished film on the edit, Karan reportedly felt the scene needed more punch and decided it was best to shoot it again. But Saif, who was recuperating from an injury at the time, could not film on the dates Karan had secured from Ranbir and Aishwarya. Putting off the shoot until Saif could film meant losing Ranbir to the next schedule of Jagga Jasoos. The only way to reshoot the scene was to replace Saif. Sources say Karan had a frank chat with Saif and Kareena, who’re close friends of his. Once he had Saif’s okay to go ahead, Karan made the next call to his 4 am friend to bail him out. The rest is up there on screen for all of us to see.

End of Good Times

The buzz in film circles is that the head of what was until recently a big production outfit is so determined to cut back on—even wrap up—all film production ventures that she’s slashed the fees of the director and actors working on her current project. This film could well be the last one coming out of the once-active studio, which will likely focus strictly on television projects from now on.

Major box-office failures, a loss of faith in her CEO, and the overall fickle nature of the film business have reportedly caused this change of heart for the boss lady who used to have a reputation for taking on risky projects. The new film, a potentially exciting project, is more than halfway into production, but the studio chief has asked that budgets be scaled back. It was too late to cancel a foreign shooting schedule that had been planned, but the director and his leading man have been known to take a pay cut in order to keep the landing cost of the film reasonable.

Crew members have been noticing significant changes on the set, including the deteriorating quality of unit meals and frugal spending on day-to- day shoot requirements. The pressure is on and the message is clear. The studio won’t survive another failure.

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Rajeev Masand

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