Bollywood vibes asianculturevulture – Beating down on the City of dreams

The sudden downpours, chaos, shoot disruptions, Coldplay-Bollywood crossover fervour, Oscars controversy – there’s a lot happening in Mumbai right now, as we are about to tell you, as September draws to a close…

By Rodrigues C

WELCOME from a rainy Mumbai!

The rain Gods have been generous with the city in this week days after an almost dry, traditional core period monsoon this year. Other than affecting normal lives and even causing fatalities in the city, the rain fury affected Bollywood as well.

The shoot for Salman Khan’s ‘Sikandar’, also featuring Rashmika Mandana, was scheduled at the suburban district of Goregoan on September 25. Khan arrived at the location at around 5pm. But then due to the heavy showers the shoot had to be cancelled abruptly. Cancellations affect movie shoots majorly considering production houses work on tight schedules and budgets. Also, rescheduling is another task considering venues are booked daily.

Pop band Coldplay have been dominating headlines in India the last few days because of their January Mumbai tour, which has generated a phenomenal response; tickets are being sold in the black market at a premium. Bollywood too has joined the Coldplay fans’ bandwagon. Almost, everyday there are news reports about Bollywood and the Coldplay connection. A photo shared by Coldplay India on X featuring Deepika Padukone and the band’s lead singer Chris Martin engrossed in a chat has gone viral. The picture was clicked at Shah Rukh Khan’s pad Mannat during the British band’s 2016 tour of India. Then there is Karan Johar, who tried to buy the concert tickets and failed. The producer was disappointed of course and took to Instagram to tell the world.

The August 15 release ‘Stree 2’, featuring Shraddha Kapoor, Rajkummar Rao and Pankaj Tripathi is now officially the highest grossing Bollywood movie of all time.

The horror comedy has so far minted about over £76.7 million at the worldwide box office in its sixth week. Not only box office records, the movie has other achievements to its credit as well. Like for example, it’s had the highest collection for paid preview shows on August 14 overtaking the numbers of SRK’s ‘Chennai Express’.

The Amar Kaushik directorial also holds the record for highest collections in its second, third, fourth and fifth week among Bollywood movies. As the weekend approaches, the only film that can stop ‘Stree 2’ from boosting its box office numbers further is the Jr NTR and Saif Ali Khan starrer ‘Devara’, which hit theatres on Friday (September 27). More on this in next month’s instalment… Early indications are that it will do well – one site estimated that its net takings from Friday were around £7m – and a better opening than ‘Stree 2’ but slightly behind ‘Kalki 2898 AD’.
The previous record for the highest Bollywood box office collection was held by SRK’s actioner ‘Jawan’.

So, after competing with 29 movies such as the Cannes winner ‘All We Imagine As Light’, ‘Kalki 2898 AD’, ‘Maidaan’, ‘Srikanth’, ‘Animal’, ‘Chandu Champion’, ‘Article 370’, ‘Joram’, ‘Sam Bahadur’ and the Malayalam film ‘Aattam’, ‘Laapataa Ladies’ was selected as India’s official entry for the 2025 Oscars on September 23.

This was followed by the usual congratulatory messages to director Kiran Rao. But to everyone’s surprise, the next day, producer Sandeep Singh announced on social media that his film, ‘Swatantrya Veer Savarkar’, featuring Randeep Hooda, had been “officially submitted” for the Oscars.

Singh even thanked Film Federation of India (FFI), the body responsible for the selection of India’s Oscar entries. Several news outlets carried this information adding to the confusion until it became a major controversy.

Ravi Kottarakara, president of FFI later said that the makers of ‘Swatantrya Veer Savarkar’ had provided “incorrect information” and that he would soon release a formal statement regarding the issue.

There was also talk about why ‘All We Imagine As Light’ which won the Grand Prix this year at Cannes was not selected – many expected it to both at home and abroad. Kottarakara claimed ‘Laapataa Ladies’ was more Indian; and there was further controversy when the film was adjudged by the FII chief to strike a very Indian balance between dominance and subservience, according to reports. Strange – and sexist, many pointed out.

Except for Vijay Thalapathy’s ‘Greatest Of All Time’ (GOAT), the box office numbers for other movies released in September were lacklustre.

Released on September 5, the Venkat Prabhu directorial has minted about £41m worldwide. The other film worth a mention is director Ravi Udyawar’s ‘Yudhra’ staring Siddhant Chaturvedi and Malavika Mohanan, which released on September 20; it’s collected about a million pounds so far.

OTT saw a slate of interesting fare this month such as ‘The Buckingham Murders’ with Kareena Kapoor, ‘Kill’ with Raghav Juyal, ‘Visfot’ with Riteish Deshmukh, ‘Thalavan’ with Biju Menon, ‘Berlin’ featuring Aparshakti Khurana and Rahul Bose, ‘Sector 36’ with Vikrant Massey, Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Diana Penty’s ‘Adbhut’ and ‘Lal Salaam’ featuring a cameo by superstar Rajinikanth.

October will see the launch of the Salman Khan hosted reality show Bigg Boss 18, which is hugely popular in India.

Currently, the Indian press is speculating who could be the potential contestants. Yes, there will be movie releases as well such as Akshay Kumar’s ‘Sky Force’, Alia Bhatt’s ‘Jigra’ and Rajkummar Rao’s ‘Vicky Vidya Ka Woh Wala Video’. We don’t know their fate – can they rise beyond the battle of a billion plus eyeballs that ‘Big Boss 18’ will spark – arguably one of the biggest TV shows on the planet, if not the biggest… till next time…