It’s Kunal Kapoor for ‘Don 2’

While we watched sadly Arjun Rampal taking the exit route from Farhan Akhtar’s ‘Don 2’, here’s the latest update from the movie front….

Buzz is that Kunal Kapoor has been signed for this Shah Rukh Khan starring project. But wait a minute, the ‘Rang De Basanti’ actor has not replaced Rampal…. It had been alleged that Kunal will play the character Jasjeet, (Pran’s role in original ‘Don’) that was done by Arjun in the first version. But according to producer Ritesh Sidhwani, Kunal will do a pivotal role in this one.

He explained to sources, that in fact there will be no Jasjeet in ‘Don 2’. Instead they said to have introduced three new parts in the film and Kunal plays one of them while Lara Dutta plays the second one. Meanwhile they are yet to finalise someone for the third character. As for now, ‘Don 2’ will have Shah Rukh Khan, Priyanka Chopra, Boman Irani and Om Puri from the original cast, Sidhwani revealed.

Hmmm, the film’s development is slowly getting interesting, hai na?

Shahrukh Khan leaks details on Don 2 and Ra.One!

Bollywood's king Shahrukh Khan let slip a couple of interesting titbits today from his twitter account, the juice involves his upcoming big budget films Ra.1 and the sequel to Don.

According to Shahrukh, 'Don 2' begins filming in September or early October. As we reported earlier, Farhan Akhtar's sequel to 'Don' promises to be four times as big and a dozen times as slick as the original film. The director, along with his buddy and producing partner Ritesh Sidhwani recently returned from an exhausting trip to Europe; the duo were scouting locations to shoot Don 2 which expands upon the storyline set in the first film.

Don 2 will have a humongous budget and will feature some big chase scenes never before seen in Indian cinema. Farhan and Ritesh have decided to take the production design a couple of notches higher. "We selected a few places in London and then went to Ireland. Dublin is certainly on the cards. The locations are breath taking. After that we flew to Germany. We went to Frankfurt and Berlin. Our scouting certainly proved fruitful and we have decided on the places that we will be shooting", said Ritesh Sidhwani.

Farhan and Ritesh intend to take the Don franchise the way of the Bourne Trilogy. Like 'The Bourne Supremacy', Don 2 will tighten up the plot, action, pace and locales. What's more, if Don 2 does well financially, Farhan and Ritesh have promised to dole out Don 3.

Shahrukh also tweeted regarding his superhero film 'Ra.One'. As per his tweet, 'ra.one is short form for random access version one. reads like it is written. RAONE. its a movie about gaming and superheroes and bad guys.' SRK also dismissed rumours regarding Aishwarya Rai being a part of the film. 'no aish is not in the film. the final cast will be announced soon ...waiting for just some last bit of casting. yes it does read as in ravan' he tweeted.

Both 'Don 2' and 'Ra.One' are expected to release on 2011. SRK's only release for 2010 is Karan Johar's 'My Name is Khan'.

Sequel to Don will only release 2011, five years after original!

Sequels are interesting only if there isn't a big gap between the two releases. They are usually made to cash in on the success of the film. Dostana released last year but the wheels to make Dostana 2 are in motion.

However Don which released in 2006, will have it's sequel in 2011!

Insiders say that the script of the film is ready and SRK had kept dates aside for the film but after the success of Rock On!!, Farhan is concentrating more on his acting and direction has taken a backseat.

A source reveals, "Shah Rukh Khan was keen to finish the film this year but it wasn't possible, as Farhan had other commitments. Now SRK will have no release in 2009, and he isn't happy about the fact. And next year, his dates are committed to Anubhav Sinha's Ra1 and Farah Khan's Happy New Year." Now he will make Farhan sweat it out for another year before he gives dates for the sequel.

Says producer Ritesh Sidhwani, "Don 2 starts in the summer next year and will be shot in Berlin and will release in 2011."

Shah Rukh to replace Aamir

If reports are to be believed then Shah Rukh will soon have his vendetta on Aamir.
According to industry insiders, SRK is replacing his archrival Aamir Khan in Farhan Akhtar-Ritesh Sidhwani's next.

Apparently Ritesh approached Aamir with a film idea on the sets of 3 Idiots. Riding high on his new market value, Aamir refused to agree to whatever Sidhwani offered. He demanded a whopping fee for acting in the film and on the top of that, wanted a percentage share from the movie's profits. There was no love lost between the producer and the actor, and eventually Sidhwani walked out on Aamir, which is quite ironical since their last venture together with Farhan had delivered the super hit cult film Dil Chahta Hai.

Meanwhile, Ritesh did confirm that talks with Aamir had failed but refused to reveal who exactly is going to replace the actor. But since the incident, rumour mills haven't stopped buzzing that in all probability it's going to be Shah Rukh Khan. Shah Rukh is anyways a favorite with Farhan , who made Don with King Khan and now plans to make Don 2 with him.

Well, the people in Aamir's camp insist that the perfectionist Khan didn't disagree over the cost rather it was the quality of the script that disappointed him. Aamir is currently finishing Rajkumar Hirani's 3 Idiots where Aamir is co-starring with Kareena for the first time.

Looks like for once it's going to be Aamir's loss, and Shah Rukh's gain in this war of mighty Khans.