Rumors were afloat, for some time now, about Shahid dating Priyanka, though confirmation has not been received from them as yet.   But the recent happenings are definitely hinting a relationship between the stars.  Earlier, Piggy Chops was seen being dropped by Shahid at the airport, as she left for Brazil for her schedule shoot of “Khatron Ke Khiladi 3”.

One of the suburban multiplexes was even graced by the presence of the rumored couple together at the screening of “Dabangg”.  During that visit to the theatre, the actress’s remark about her forthcoming release “Anjaana Anjaani” displeased Kapoor.  The point thatdisgruntled Ranbir was when Priyanka spoke about her co-star Ranbir. Is this insecurity we sense?

Apart from this Shahid was also not too pleased when he was told about the intimate scenes filmed in Priyanka’s forthcoming movie.  “Anjaana Anjaani” includes two loving kissing scenes between the two actors, Priyanka and Ranbir.  Now, what’s making Shahid feel so offended?  Is something cooking up between both of them who were also co-actors in “Kaminey”?

Actor Ranbir Kapoor has also been seen along with Priyanka Chopra a couple of times.  Priyanka’s lip lock scenes with Ranbir in the film are the new buzz in the industry.  

These kisses, were not part of the original script, but were supplemented at a much later stage at the US schedule.  The lip locks, being so sensational, had only the director, the light man and the cameraman present at the shoot.  Other crew members were asked to depart.

Because of the closeness of his relationship with Priyanka Chopra, Shahid Kapoor has not taken to these scenes very well. Reports are that she has received lots of gifts from him at Brazil, where “Khatron Ke Khiladi” is being shot.

Dabangg has managed to topple the opening weekend record created by the Aamir Khan-movie, 3 Idiots. With the box-office collections exceeding Rs 80 crore in a week, the Salman-starrer will most probably surpass the all-time collection record set by 3 Idiots. At this juncture, one fact that confounds trade pundits is the reason for its colossal success.

Dabangg, meaning fearless, is a movie of ‘70s and ‘80s genre, aimed more at smaller towns rather than the urban multiplex audience. However, upsetting all preconceptions of Bollywood, the urban cine-goers took to the unpretentious entertainer. One of the reasons for this turn of events is the lack of out-and-out entertainers in the action-comedy genre in the recent past. Once a sure-fire success formula for Hindi films, it was made obsolete with the arrival of multiplexes, which forced Bollywood to concentrate on urban-centric stories and urban sensibilities. The once-upon-a-time success formula was relegated to Bhojpuri movies. Now with the success of Dabangg, it seems the taste of Indian audience has not changed much over the last thirty-odd years.

The original story of Dabangg rooted in rustic Indian way of life is its forte. Now with most of the big films moving away from this space, the industry was experiencing a vacuum, which was eagerly filled by Dabangg.

The success of Dabangg is a reminder that the urban audience too loves such full-blown entertainers with rural touch. After all, this group comprises mostly of migrated rural folk.

Last but not least is the role played by Salman Khan in making the movie a hit. His down-to-earth performance struck a chord with audience belonging to all walks of life. Salman playing a corrupt yet lovable cop, in a way draws parallel with his own real character. May be the likeness made his performance look convincing to the audience.

Though the film was thrashed by critics, Dabangg’s debutant director Abhinav Kashyap is all smiles. As director Mahesh Bhatt said, “It is very easy to fool the high-brow audience but difficult to entertain the masses.”

Akshay Kumar has reasons to smile. His much hyped ‘Kambakkth Ishq’ has managed to build a good hype amongst the audiences, something which is reflecting from the favourable response that it has received via a healthy advance booking. Though quite a few multiplexes and single screens opened their advance booking only on Wednesday (which is the norm), some major chains (like PVR) opened it early as Sunday to gauge audience’s interest in the film. Thankfully, it was all positive, something which would definitely have contributed to sudden plans for paid previews that were hosted on Thursday.

However, Sajid Nadiadwala and Co. took a guarded approach as instead of going ballistic with paid previews and playing multiple shows all through the evening and night, they kept it low profile with only a show each at select multiplexes in major cities. Moreover, the show timings were also quite late in the night with some of them beginning as late as 11 PM. Obviously, the makers and especially the leading man Akshay Kumar have learnt the lesson from ‘Chandni Chowk To China’ debacle where negative reviews had started flowing as early as 9 PM Thursday night once the first paid preview (at 6PM) had come to a close.

Though sources indicate that the makers of ‘Kambakkth Ishq’ are quite confident of their product, it made sense to have a restricted viewing of the film rather than it being a wholesome affair, lest it led to any negativity. In any case, record number of prints are being circulated across the country which means that opening weekend collections should be quite a bountiful.

There have been murmurs around the promos not being really strong for this Akshay and Kareena starrer. However, one just hopes that the team of ‘Kambakkth Ishq’ is hiding the real stuff in the background rather than revealing it all in the promos itself; a mistake that recent release ‘Paying Guest’ made and suffered badly. It would be better for a film with such a huge scale to let audiences warm up to the film and that’s a path this Sabbir Khan directed film seems to be taking.

As are the indicators right now, the film should fetch good numbers in the opening weekend even if they aren’t record breaking per se. While ‘Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi’ and ‘Singh Is Kinng’ hold the record of netting 40 crores or more in their first week (with ‘Ghajini’ going through the ceiling with a 60 crores + opening, it would be fair if ‘Kambakkth Ishq’ crosses 35 crores mark at the least. This is where the film seems to be headed as well and even though a few may complain that these collections would be less for an Akshay Kumar biggie, one has to keep in mind that he has suffered two recent flops in ‘Chandni Chowk To China’ and ’8X10 Tasveer’, something which is looming large on audience’s mind. Moreover, 35 crores is not a bad number too as long as the film can sustain in weeks to come.

With ‘Shortkut – The Con Is On’ being the only major release in week to follow and ‘Jashnn’ arriving on 17th July, ‘Kambakkth Ishq’ now has to be just a decent enough film to keep showing steady collections before ‘Luck’ arrives on 24th July.