Kareena Kapoor has record number of festival period releases

Aamir Khan and Akshay Kumar may have set their eyes on Christmas with Taare Zameen Par/Welcome 2007, Ghajini/Jumbo 2008, 3 Idiots 2009 and Tees Maar Khan 2010. Salman Khan may have captured his Eid slot with Wanted 2009, Dabangg 2010 and Bodyguard 2011. But Kareena isn’t content with just one festival. She wants them all and is pretty much having her way as well.

Says a veteran trade observer, “After all Diwali and Christmas have turned out to be most beneficial for filmmakers due to long holiday period as well as general mood of celebrations and festivities. People don’t mind spending money and if a film is indeed made well, the makers and the actors benefit the most. It is crystal clear that while all the men are fighting it out amongst themselves when it comes to festive releases, Kareena is enjoying the best of all seasons. Well, literally.”

There are facts to substantiate this claim. This year her Golmaal 3 released on Diwali. Last year her 3 Idiots had arrived on Christmas while Main Aurr Mrs Khanna had released on Diwali. In 2008, her Golmaal Returns had made a splash on Diwali while Jab We Met in 2007 too had released just a few days before Diwali. Even earlier, her films like Don – The Chase Begins Again Diwali 2006, Dosti – Friends Forever Christmas 2005 and Aitraaz Diwali 2004 had benefited by arriving in the festive season.

“Somehow this fact never got highlighted as all the rivalry seemed to be hero-centric. However, Kareena has been quietly enjoying her stint when it comes to the release of her biggies. Now the going only seems to be perfect for her in near future as well with her newer films eyeing the best available slots”, continues the observer.

As things stand today, Kareena can well enjoy quite a few celebrations coming her way in the festival season ahead. Come 2011 and she would be occupying both Eid Bodyguard as well as the Diwali Ra. One slots. Though Christmas season currently has only one confirmed release – the sequel to Shah Rukh Khan’s Don, it would be interesting to see if Kareena brings one of her movies along then.

“Well, one can never be too sure about such things”, smiles Kareena who is obviously elated with this ‘feat’, “Yes, Golmaal 3 was always planned for a Diwali release and it’s blockbuster success has made us all feel good about the effort that we all had to put to ensure that the deadline was met.”

Now with declaration coming in that Salman Khan would most definitely bring in Bodyguard on Eid 2011, Kareena knows that it is going to be quite some hard work ahead.

“I would soon be beginning shoot for the Karan Johar film with Imran (Khan)”, she talks about (tentatively titled) Short Term Shaadi here, “Meanwhile, Ra. One and Agent Vinod too have to be wrapped up. With Bodyguard coming in as well, it is going to be some really busy months ahead. But yes, it does feel great to be arriving on festive dates year after year.”

Since Ra. One has already been confirmed for Diwali 2011, one wonders when would her film with Saif Ali Khan, Agent Vinod, eventually release. The tentative plans as of now are for May 2011 but it won’t be surprising if the makers pick the long Independence Day weekend for the release. 15th August falls on a Monday and a 12th August release would give them a 4 day long weekend here, hence adding on to continued celebrations for Kareena. In between all of this, she would also be kick starting her new film with Aamir Khan. As for Short Term Shaadi, how about Christmas 2011?

Some food for thought Kareena? After all it could well be a record waiting to make an entry into the Guinness!

Kareena will bring in her 30th birthday in Latvia

It isn’t going to be a very happy birthday for Kareena Kapoor on September 21. She will be far away from home shooting for Sriram Raghavan’s Agent Vinod in Latvia. Earlier in July she missed her sister Karisma’s birthday since she was shooting in London with Shah Rukh Khan for Ra.One.

The only bright spot in this birthday away from home is that Saif will be with her. And since Agent Vinod is a home production, Saif and Kareena are planning to fly down Kareena’s mother to Latvia for the birthday.

Karisma cannot join them because of her baby.

Kareena expresses helplessness about her impossible schedules. “What can I do? I barely have time to breathe. I’ve just come to Mumbai for two days. I’ve been away for 25 days. Now I fly off to Latvia for over a month’s shooting,” said Kareena before leaving Mumbai.

Confirming that the shooting of Madhur Bhandarkar’s Heroine has indeed been postponed Kareena says, “Madhur is still working on the script. We start shooting the film when the script is ready in the next three months. Right now Madhur is busy with Dil Toh Bachcha Hai Ji.”

Says the actress, “I’m now entering a new phase in my life and career. This year I hope to conquer many new peaks. By God’s grace Agent Vinod and Ra.One are shaping up very well.”

Saif to launch Agent Vinod Play Station game next year

Whenever one gets to hear of Saif Ali Khan, the terms that get associated with him are talent, style, poise and lots of élan. Here on, add one more term, and that’s ‘acute business acumen’. Testimonial to this is the fact that he is now all set to launch an ‘Agent Vinod’ game, for his upcoming film which goes with the same name. It’s a game that will have the user become ‘Agent Vinod’ and go looking for the clues in the country, interacting with many characters, including that of Kareena’s as well.

For this game, Saif has tied up Sangam Gupta of Trine Animation and Gaming Studio. Readers may note that this is one of the very few companies that create Xbox and PlayStation games. Saif has planned to start the pre-release promotions of this film in April next year, with the PlayStation game and a comic book. Talking about the two concepts of promoting the film, Saif said that the idea was to come up with a different medium of expression that will appeal to kids as well as adults.

For the uninitiated, Agent Vinod stars Saif in the lead, with his real-life lady love Kareena Kapoor. The film is directed by Sriram Raghavan.

Eros out, Saif Ali Khan takes Agent Vinod to Cinemax?

Agent Vinod, the film that’s all the buzz, thanks to its starcast Saif Ali Khan and Kareena Kapoor, has cut all ties with Eros International. Grapevine says that budgets were an issue.

Apparently, the official financers of the film, Eros International, wanted to rework the budget of the film and cut down numbers, something that producers from Illuminati Films, Saif Ali Khan and Dinesh Vijan, were not happy about. Any compromise on the film was not acceptable to the producers. This led to disagreement and fall out between Eros and Illuminati films.

It is being said that Cinemax has now stepped in and will now be the official presenter of Agent Vinod. When we contacted co-producer Dinesh Vijan to confirm this news, he avoided commenting on the presenter of the film. “There are no budget issues. We are going ahead with the same budget we started off with and the film is being produced by Illuminati films. Any involvement of Cinemax is something I am not aware off,” he said.

Agent Vinod is all set to go on floors this week and has quite a feisty itinerary to talk about. The shoot starts off in Morocco and the crew will be shooting in all the talked about European countries like Amsterdam the locales in east of Europe, coming back to Delhi eventually. The film will be directed by Sriram Raghavan.

Kareena & Saif On Valentine Break

MUMBAI: Kareena & Saif On Valentine Break, Kareena Kapoor and Saif Ali Khan have their Valentine’s Day planned. Bebo will first fly to Paris to shoot a commercial, and then she will proceed to an European destination to be joined by the Junior Nawab of Pataudi.

You guessed right. These two will spend their Valentine’s Day far from the madding crowds of Mumbai, and then fly back in time to do some serious work. Bebo has tied up her projects for the year, but Saif is still refusing scripts. In fact, he is said to have shot down portions of the Agent Vinod script again, and there’s some serious reworking happening on his spy saga.

---

Kareena & Saif On Valentine Break was first posted on February 8, 2010 at 2:30 pm.