Bollywood superstition has it that films released on the first Friday of the year don’t do well, so no major film releases on this ‘inauspicious’ time of the year, just some stragglers and no-hopers. In the second week of January, the industry takes a deep breath and starts getting its products out.
What can audiences expect in the first few weeks of the new year? To begin with Amit Sharma’s Arjun Kapoor-Sonakshi Sinha-Manoj Bajpai starrer ‘Tevar’ which looks like more hijinks in the Hindi heartland. In the following week, Bipasha Basu, self-proclaimed queen of horror movies, gets to ghostly business in Bhushan Patel’s ‘Alone’, with co-star Karan Singh Grover taking his six-pack abs from TV to films.
Prakash Jha takes a break from his political thrillers to produce a comedy called ‘Crazy Cukkad Family’, directed by Ritesh Menon, about a man in coma and his family waiting for him to kick the bucket. Zayed Khan attempts a comeback in a film with the odd title, ‘Sharafat Gayi Tel Lene’, directed by Gurmeet Singh.
Then Sonam Kapoor makes another dash towards a hit with Abhishek Dogra’s ‘Dolly Ki Doli’, in which she plays a conwoman, who marries, robs and dumps men. Akshay Kumar and Rana Daggubati team up to fight terror in Neeraj Pandey’s ‘Baby’.
The promo of ‘Hawaizaada’ has created a flutter of interest in Vibhu Virender Puri’s film with Ayushmann Khurrana and Mithun Chakraborty as a man trying to build the world’s first aircraft. From the Bhatt Brothers factory comes Karan Dara’s ‘Khamoshiyan’, an erotic mystery, with newcomer Sapna Pabbi, TV’s Gurmeet Choudhary and Ali Fazal.
In February, comes R Balki’s Amitabh Bachchan-Dhanush film, titled ‘Shamitabh’, which is also creating a buzz with its promos. If anybody is still interested in Mallika Sherawat, she stars in KC Bokadia’s ‘Dirty Politics’ as an item girl-turned politician, which looks like it’s just up her street.
Because Ranbir Kapoor always picks unusual films, all eyes are on Vikramjit Singh’s ‘Roy’, in which he stars with Arjun Rampal and Jaqueline Fernandez. His other big film, Anurag Kashyap’s ‘Bombay Velvet’, comes later in the year and then there’s ‘Jagga Jasoos’, which he is producing.
Rather early in his career, Varun Dhawan’s drops his fluffy romantic hero persona to do Sriram Raghavan’s dark thriller ‘Badlapur’.
Arshad Warsi comes up with two films with the same director Subhash Kapoor – ‘Guddu Rangeela’ and the sequel to ‘Jolly LLB’.
All this and some more, just in the first two months. There’s plenty more to look for during the following ten months. Happy viewing!