Salman Khan signs for big-budget movie

Bollywood has lost another legend. After the recent deaths of Shammi Kapoor, Mansoor Khan and Jagjit Singh, evergreen superstar Dev Anand died at the age of 88 after suffering a heart attack in London.

The legendary actor, who spent more than six decades in the industry, will be fondly remembered for his movies Hum Dono, Guide, Hare Rama Hare Krishna and Swami Dada. Beside starring in numerous blockbusters, the much-loved actor also directed 19 movies and was honoured in 2002 with the Dadasaheb Phalke Award, which is India's highest accolade in cinema given annually by the government for lifetime contribution to Indian cinema.

BIG BUDGET

SALMAN Khan is one of the busiest stars in the industry. Besides working on Ek Tha Tiger with Katrina Kaif and Dabangg 2 and Kick with Sonakshi Sinha, Khan has now been signed by Subash Ghai for a movie that's been described as a big-budget entertainer. Khan and Ghai last worked together on the flop Yuvraaj. Music for the new project will be composed by AR Rahman.

TRAILERS

IT'S confirmed that the first look of Aamir Khan's Talaash will be screened with Shahrukh Khan's Don 2, which will be released on December 23. The decision to add the Talaash trailers to Don 2 was made by Farhan Akthar, who is the director of the Shahrukh movie and the co-producer of the Aamir film. Talaash features Aamir in the role of a cop, together with Kareena Kapoor and Rani Mukerjee. Khan has worked with Mukerjee in Mangal Pandey and Ghulam and with Kapoor in 3 Idiots, which still remains Bollywood's biggest money-spinner to date.

SEQUEL

THE astounding success of the horror flick 1920 has inspired filmmaker Vikram Bhatt to make a sequel. The original featured Rajneesh Duggal and Adah Sharma. The sequel, will star Aftab Shivdasani and Tia Bajpai, who was seen in Bhatt's Haunted, that was released early this year. The sequel was shot extensively in Sweden and Shivdasani plays a poet. Bhatt is currently shooting Dangerous Ishq, which is Karisma Kapoor's comeback movie.

ANOTHER KHAN

THERE'S a new Bollywood baby in town. Aamir Khan and his wife, Kiran Rao, became the proud parents of a boy last Monday after seeking the assistance of a surrogate mother. In a media statement, the overjoyed couple said: "It gives us the greatest joy to share with you the good news of the birth of our baby boy. This baby is especially dear to us because he was born to us after a long wait and some difficulty. Due to medical complications, we were advised to have a baby through IVF-Surrogacy, and we feel very grateful to the Almighty that all has gone well."

FORMIDABLE

WILL the winning combination of director Goutham Vasudeva Menon and music composer Harris Jayaraj return to delight their fans? The duo had made a formidable and successful team since Menon's debut film, Minnale, but parted ways after Vaaranam Aayiram following a disagreement. Now that AR Rahman has dropped Menon's Neethan en Ponvasantham because of date clashes, sources from Menon's camp have hinted that the director and composer have patched up their differences and that an official announcement will soon be made.

ANNIVERSARY

FROM MGR to Rajnikanth to Ajithkumar. Vijaya Productions have announced a film to mark the 100th birth anniversary of its founder, B Nagi Reddi.

Ajithkumar will play the lead role and the film will be directed by Siva, who gave audiences the hit Siruthai. The long list of releases by Vijaya Productions include MGR's Enga Veetu Pillai and Rajnikanth's Uzhaipaalli.

SUPERHERO

A SUPERHERO martial-arts film? That's the description of Jeeva's Mugamoodi, which is being advertised as Tamil cinema's first superhero movie. Narain and Naaser will play major supporting roles. One of the highlights will be a kung-fu fight sequence featuring Jeeva and Narian .

VIDEO

THE Kolaveri phenomenon continues to sweep the music world with the last count at 14.5 million views of the promotional video on YouTube. Whether it is Dhanush's rustic voice, his raw, honest and unembellished lyrics in broken Tamil and broken English or Anirudh's catchy tune, even people who don't usually listen to Indian music find this song enchanting.

Since its release, there have been dozens of other versions posted on the internet, ranging from translations to remixes to comedy clips. Why this Kolaveri Di is in the running for song of the year on LotusFM.

A Malaysian-born Tamil singer has even released a full Tamil version of the song and this version has found favour with many people who could not believe that a song that massacred two languages would go on to be so popular.