August Controversy: Shah Rukh, Sonakshi, Akshay & John in soup

With some major blockbusters hitting the silver screen and breaking records, August is turning out to be a fortune turner for Bollywood. But along with the laurels comes numerous controversies with the movies that have hit the charts this month.

Starting with the all-time blockbuster ‘Chennai Express’ that did the fastest business, the tussle with Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) made headlines.

The movie prior to its release demanded prime slots in single screen cinemas as well as some multiplexes in the state of Maharastra. But as a superhit Marathi film ’Duniyadari’ that had been running to packed houses since July 19, it came to loggerheads withMNS officials.

However later, on August 1, 2013, both the film directors, Rohit Shetty and Sanjay Jadhav were called by Raj Thackeray for a settlement. After listening to both parties, Thackeray ruled that if ’Duniyadar’i was not removed from single screen cinemas across the state, then the MNS would not object to the release and run of ’Chennai Express’ in Maharashtra.

And then as the say the rest was history, the film has sailed through setting new benchmarks.

The next is ‘Once Upon A Time In Mumbaai Doobara’ that released this Independence day. Initially as we know the movie was supposed to release with ‘Chennai Express’ on Eid but the movies date was pushed by a week, eliminating competition.

Then the second controversy was regarding the leads of the film. Known as the scissor of Bollywood, Akshay Kumar soon found fingers once again pointed at him for cutting down his co-actor Imran Khan parts, right in the trailer itself.

But in a public statement Akshay confessed, “I’m anyway known to cut people’s roles so therefore I went on the editing table and told them to make a special promo for me. So, they did so.”

There is more to it, the lead actress in the film, Sonakshi Sinha was also the lead in the recent film ‘Lootera’ where she romanced Ranveer Singh.

And she had Imran Khan as her love interest in ‘OUATIMD’. So during a press conference we sensed some heat between Imran and Ranveer who supposedly were in a competition to have a better chemistry with Sonakshi. “With all due respect Ranveer is wrong,” said Imran and added, “Their movie is really nice. I have seen their film and the two of them have an awesome chemistry but our chemistry is much better.”

And the fourth controversy was regarding Sonakshi Sinha’s character in the film that was called Yasmine initially but was later changed to Jasmine, which Ekta Kapoor blamed on numerology. However, rumours were that Sonakshi’s character Yasmine is remotely based on the underworld Don’s lover Mandakini and in real life Mandakini’s name was Yasmine Joseph.

So to ward off such speculations, Sonakhshi’s name in the film had been switched.

Up next we have J.A production’s ‘Madras Café’ which releases on August 23, 2013 and this political thriller seemed to have sailed off all the tests until yesterday when after a special screening of the film, members of Tamil activist group Naam Tamizhar vowed not the allow the film to release in Tamil Nadu claiming that it portrays LTTE cadres as terrorists.

Which means the film’s release is now in jeopardy in Tamil Nadu which cuts down a sizeable number of audiences from that region.

Up next we have ‘Satyagraha’ which is a political thriller yet again by Prakash Jha and considering the spirit of patriotism in the film, it was supposed to release on Independence day but to save themselves from the fury of ‘Chennai Express’ and ‘OUATIMD’ the filmmakers firstly postponed the release, not once but twice.

Also, recently Jha lodged a complaint with Kolkata and Patna police against an impostor who claiming to be his son had collected money by falsely promising to have organised an event on August 14 for promotion of ‘Satyagraha’.

With all these controversies buzzing the town, the show still goes on in Bollywood!