‘Chandni Chowk To China’ sank without a trace and many felt that Kinng Kumar’s golden streak has come to an end. It’s being said that his well wishers are asking him to not try comedy again. A source has said “Akshay Kumar has become progressively active in the process of writing scripts and shooting films. He freely makes suggestions some of which, I’ve to admit, are good. But quite often he wants to take over the project. When I went to him with another project he offered to co-produce it and to get someone to re-write portions. It’s obvious a lot of scenes in Chandni Chowk were re-written. The result shows.”
The inside buzz is that ‘Chandni Chowk To China’ writer Sridhar Raghavan was persuaded to continuously change the scenes until the writer who has good screenplays to his credit in Raj Santoshi’s films was a helpless puppet propelling the plot to destinations-unknown.
But friends like producer Sajid Nadiadwala whose ‘Kambhakht Ishq’ he’s doing aren’t worried.
He says, “It’s an out-and-out rom-com with stunts of an international order. And why are we jumping the gun just because one of his films hasn’t lived up to expectations? There could be so many reasons for it. Why should Akshay be blamed for it? Why so much negative criticism about him? Is he the first superstar to fail at box office?”
He doesn’t care about the comic element being there or not. He’s said, “The film is what it is. I don’t work with my actors based on how their last film did. ‘Kambhakht Ishq’ will have a lot to offer.”
One huge challenge though is that Akshay’s pairing with Kareena Kapoor hasn’t always done well with duds like Suneel Darshan’s ‘Talaash’, Dharmesh Darshan’s ‘Bewafaa’ and Yash Raj’s ‘Tashan’.
Vipul Shah’s film with Akshay Kumar and Aishwarya Rai which is to be launched in March has no comic element either.
He says, “I don’t think the failure of ‘Chandni Chowk To China’ means that audiences have rejected him in the comic avatar. The backlash is totally uncalled-for. And it looks motivated by reasons other than the box-office. A lot of people have been waiting to pounce on Akshay. This is their opportunity.”
Only Priyadarshan’s ‘De Dana Dan’ is an out-and-out comedy but Govinda’s buffoonery would be more visible there. Other than that, Akshay’s forthcoming projects will not have much of comedy. Well things change for better or worse with time. Looks like the hit machine has learnt it well enough by now.
