A twist in action, romance and drama is what Bollywood promises this year. Here’s our pick for 2010.
The film industry has great expectations riding on its releases this year. Every big name in Bollywood has a big-ticket release lined up in 2010 and the industry is eager to shake off the memory of 2009 that saw nothing much go right.
With an annual turnover pegged at Rs 50,000 crore (Source: FICCI FRAMES), the industry has a lot on its plate this year. Budgets for movies are as big as ever, but two big spenders — Pyaar Impossible and Chance Pe Dance — have bitten dust in the first weeks of 2010. It is a critical year for directors such as Ram Gopal Varma and Karan Johar as expectations are riding high on their respective releases, Rann and My Name Is Khan. Varma has been having a torrid time with flops in quick succession (Agyaat, Phoonk, Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag…) but Rann looks promising. Johar is back with a familiar formula, the popular Shah Rukh Khan-Kajol partnership, in My Name is Khan.
Khan didn’t have a single release in ‘09 and has only one this year, so it will be interesting to see how My Name is Khan fares at the box office. Like Khan, Hrithik Roshan, whose film Kites was supposed to release last year, will find out what becomes of the Rs 100 crore affair when it hits the screens. Pegged as the most awaited release of 2010, Kites will be a crucial film in Roshan’s career. Katrina Kaif meanwhile will don a new avatar sans make-up in Rajneeti.
My Name Is Khan, Rann and Rajneeti will break new ground in debating issues in commercial cinema. And mid-budget films such as Delhi Belly, Road, Movie, Peepli Live, which have already been felicitated at film festivals around the world, will mix it in with the big boys. It will also be interesting to see whether Abhay Deol, the poster boy of Indian festival films, will make a mark in a commercial film like Ayesha scheduled for mid-2010.
MY NAME IS KHAN
Cast: Shah Rukh Khan, Kajol
Director: Karan Johar
Release Date: February 12
Budget: Rs 40 crore
The script revolves around Rizvan Khan (Shah Rukh Khan), a young Muslim man who moves from India to San Francisco. He marries Mandira (Kajol) against his family’s wishes and aspires for a happy life with his wife. Life changes drastically for the couple after 9/11 when racism rears its ugly head in a wounded America. Khan thus embarks on a journey to meet, who else, the President of the USA.
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KITES
Cast:Hrithik Roshan, Barbara More, Kangana Ranaut
Director: Anurag Basu
Release Date: October 16
Budget: Rs 100 crore
J (Hrithik Roshan) and Natasha (Barbara Mori) are in love despite language barriers. Circumstances force them to go their separate ways but with a promise to meet again. Once a young, street-smart guy, J is now a wanted man. He is on the run but despite trying to save himself, he has one mission — to meet his lady love, Natasha. Will he succeed?
RANN: THE NEWS BATTLE
Cast: Amitabh Bachchan, Riteish Deshmukh
Director: Ram Gopal Varma
Release Date: January 29
Budget: Rs 25 crore
Amitabh Bachchan’s back as Vijay, the onscreen name with which he achieved cult status. As Vijay Harshwardhan Malik, he owns News 24x7, a private news channel, which reports news truthfully. Malik’s son detests his father’s journalistic ethics and wants the channel to be a profit-minting venture. Purab Shastri (Reteish Deshmukh), as a student of journalism, on the other hand, idolises Malik for his principles. How will the battle for the news channel be fought? Rann could be director Ram Gopal Varma’s comeback ticket.
TEEN PATTI
Cast: Amitabh Bachchan, Sir Ben Kingsley, R Madhavan
Director: Leena Yadav
Release Date: February 26
Budget: Rs 31.5 crore
Before Leena Yadav’s Shabd was released, trade pundits promised that it would be a film to watch out for. The film, however, was downright shoddy and confused in its storytelling. The synopsis of her forthcoming film, unfortunately, makes us wonder whether this attempt too will be cluttered. The story revolves around Professor Venkat (Amitabh Bachchan) who meets Perci Trachtenberg (Sir Ben Kingsley), the greatest living mathematician in the world. Trachtenberg teaches Venkat a winning code for a card game and prompted by his colleague Shantanu (R Madhavan), Venkat uses the formula and finds himself entangled in a web of deceit and greed.
KARTHIK CALLING KARTHIK
Cast: Farhan Akhtar, Deepika Padukone
Director: Vijay Lalwani
Release Date: February 26
Budget: Rs 35 crore
When he directed Dil Chahta Hai in 2001, Farhan Akhtar, with his unique brand of filmmaking, had arrived. He followed it up with Don: The Chase Begins Again, a smart reworking of the Manmohan Desai’s original Don. Just when you wondered what he’d do next, he became a rockstar in Rock On. Now, Akhtar will be seen as Karthik, a character, which, in Akhtar’s own words, “is a loner, under-confident and horribly complex-ridden”. The film is a romantic, psychological thriller where Karthik (Akhtar) answers phone calls from himself! Deepika Padukone plays his onscreen girlfriend.
ISHQIYA
Cast: Naseeruddin Shah, Vidya Balan, Arshad Warsi
Director: Abhishek Chaubey
Release Date: January 29
Budget: Rs 20 crore
She’s already bagged the Best Actor award (female) for her performance in Paa. Now, Vidya Balan is back in a negative role, as she seduces two conmen on the run (Naseeruddin Shah and Arshad Warsi). Soon she has both the men swooning over her, but they don’t have a clue about her true intentions.
RAJNEETI-POLITICS AND BEYOND
Cast: Katrina Kaif, Ranbir Kapoor, Ajay Devgan, Arjun Rampal
Director: Prakash Jha
Release Date: May 29
Budget: Rs 50 crore
Katrina Kaif ditches her stilettos and shimmering dresses for cotton sarees and Kolhapuri chappals in Rajneeti, a film, which will see the actress essay the role of a politician. How far do politicians go to succeed? What dirty tricks do they succumb to in a bid to survive? How will a young woman leader (Kaif) survive the battle of politics and will she even live to tell the tale?
RAVANA
Cast: Abhishek Bachchan, Aishwarya Rai
Director: Mani Ratnam
Release Date: June 18
Budget: Rs 50 crore
In Ravana, Mani Ratnam’s “twist” in the mythological tale has Sita (Aishwarya Rai) getting attracted to modern-day Ravana (Abhishek Bachchan). What’s more, it’s she, not him, who is pining for his attention. The film was supposed to release in 2009 but since Ratnam hasn’t been keeping too well, the film was postponed. Ratnam’s last outing with the couple, Guru, was the very successful and going by his track record, he will repeat the success story again.
PEEPLI LIVE
Cast: Raghuvir Yadav
Director: Anusha Rizvi
Release Date: September, 2010
Budget: Rs 15 crore
Peepli Live has been felicitated at various film festivals already. The film orbits around two brothers who lose their only plot of land and have to find a solution to their problems. Unable to cope with poverty, one of them decides to commit suicide in a bid to get “government aid” for the family. Getting a whiff of another “farmer suicide”, journalists soon throng the village and wait for the farmer to end his life.
DHOBI GHAT
Cast: Aamir Khan, Prateik Babbar
Director: Kiran Rao
Release Date: December 2010
Budget: Rs 20 crore
This is a story of a painter (Aamir Khan) who lives in a congested chawl, very close to the city’s dhobi ghat. Ironically, despite all the commotion and noise, the painter seeks inspiration from a myriad of colours that he finds when people come to wash so many clothes. Then, one day, he meets a dhobi who ends up becoming an important part of his life. What happens and what makes this ordinary dhobi, suddenly, so extraordinary?
