Entertainment
Superstars, sleuths and new pairings
From detective films to political satires, Bollywood presents 
a mixed lot in the new year 
Saibal Chatterjee

Salman Khan had no release in 2013. So in 2014, the Dabangg star will be seeking to make up for lost time. He will get going in January itself with Republic Day witnessing the release of Jai Ho. Slated for releases halfway through the year, on the Eid weekend in July, Kick, producer Sajid Nadiadwala’s directorial debut. And that isn’t all. Around Diwali or Christmas, Salman Khan fans might be treated to yet another blockbuster featuring their favourite star, an untitled Prabhudeva directed film.

Salman will definitely be the Bollywood star of 2014 but the other two reigning Khans — Aamir and Shah Rukh Khan — will not lie low either. In the second half of the year, SRK will have two releases — Farah Khan’s Happy New Year, co-starring Deepika Padukone, and Maneesh Sharma’s Fan, a Yash Raj Films production in which the superstar plays a double role.

For Aamir fans, the film to look forward to will be Rajkumar Hirani’s PK, scheduled for release on June 6. It is reported to be a political satire about "Gods and godmen" and co-stars Sushant Singh Rajput and Anushka Sharma. Quite clearly, 2014 will be a year of the Bollywood superstars.

Hrithik Roshan, Ajay Devgn, Akshay Kumar and Ranbir Kapoor will also be in the thick of action. First off the blocks will be Ajay Devgn with Prabhudeva’s Action Jackson, followed up with a sequel to 2012’s Singham.

Akshay, like Salman, will have three big releases this year — Holiday, a remake of the Tamil hit Thuppaki; It’s Entertainment, the maiden directorial venture of Sajid-Farhad, writers of the Golmaal series; and Gabbar, produced by Sanjay Leela Bhansali. Health issues had held up the shoot of the Hrithik-starrer but Bang Bang, the official remake of Hollywood film Knight and Day, is likely to be ready for release this year. The film also has Katrina Kaif in the cast.

Ranbir Kapoor will be back in the multiplexes with a much-anticipated film helmed by Barfi director Anurag Basu. It is titled Jagga Jasoos.

Another Ranbir Kapoor-starrer that will come out in 2014 is Bombay Velvet, Anurag Kashyap’s costliest and most ambitious film to date.

Hindi cinema, which has rarely had a tradition of detective films, will be embracing the genre big time in 2014.

The very first release of the year, Mr Joe B. Carvalho, features Arshad Warsi as a bumbling detective.

Later in the year, Hindi movie fans will get to check out Dibakar Banerjee’s Detective Byomkesh Bakshi, a whodunit set in the 1940s Kolkata and produced by YRF. The film will see Sushant Singh Rajput essaying the role of the eponymous sleuth.

Trust Vidya Balan, star of the marital comedy Shaadi Ke Side Effects, co-starring Farhan Akhtar, to try something that Bollywood leading ladies have never done before — a detective film. Titled Bobby Jasoos, the film is currently under production and will hit the screens in the second half of 2014.

It will also be the year of Madhuri Dixit’s comeback. The veteran actress has two releases lined up in 2014 — Abhishek Chaubey’s Dedh Ishqiya and debutant Soumik Sen’s Gulaab Gang. Neither is a run-of-the-mill commercial potboiler.

Unusual star combos will be another recurrent theme of the mainstream Bollywood story in 2014. If Vidya and Farhan doing a film together were not enough, Imtiaz Ali’s Highway pairs Alia Bhatt with Randeep Hooda, Ali Abbas Zafar’s Gunday has Ranveer Singh and Arjun Kapoor opposite Priyanka Chopra, and Hasee Toh Phasee brings together Siddharth Malhotra and Parineeti Chopra.

2 States, a screen adaptation of the Chetan Bhagat novel of the same name, will also ride on its fresh cast — Arjun Kapoor and Alia Bhatt.

The film is jointly produced by Sajid Nadiadwala and Karan Johar and is bound to benefit from strong pre-release publicity.

Varun Dhawan, who like Alia Bhatt and Siddharth Malhotra, made his debut in Karan Johar's Student of the Year in 2012, will team up with director-dad David Dhawan for Main Tera Hero, the family entertainer targeted at the youth segment.

The film will be in the multiplexes in early April. Sajid Khan, who came a cropper with Himmatwala in 2013, will seek recompense with a characteristic comic romp, Humshakals, starring Saif Ali Khan, Riteish Deshmukh and Ram Kapoor in triple roles.

For Saif, who was seen in Bullett Raja in 2013, the next 12 months will be as busy as ever. He plays a pivotal role in Raj Nidimoru and Krishna DK’s Happy Ending, besides serving as the producer of Homi Adjania’s Finding Fanny Fernandes.

The latter film has Deepika Padukone and Arjun Kapoor in lead roles, but it is likely to be talked about more for its ensemble supporting cast — Naseeruddin Shah, Dimple Kapadia and Pankaj Kapur. Saif also toplines Kabir Khan's Phantom, co-starring Katrina Kaif.

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