Controversy seems to be the most happening thing in Bollywood these days. For sure, it is not the films!

With the subsequent poor out break of films that 2002 has seen, the industry´s fan followers are quickly decreasing, so much so that it is no wonder that the turn out at the box office is so low. It seems that the media or film makers themselves are trying to reel them back in through tricks of the trade, most pertinently, rumours. After all, how else can one explain the constant affairs, break ups, cancellations, delays etc. that never turn out to be true?

In any case, here is some more controversy averted from none other than controversy´s child, Salman Khan. And just when one thought that the film couldn´t create any more controversy, Kaante surprises with much much more.

Last week there was a news item in a section of the press that the eternal bad boy Salman Khan was at it again and got his fans beaten up by his security guards when all that the fans wanted was to ´take a picture´. When we investigated it came out that almost 5 film units are presently in Manali and the local tour/cab operators and arrangers were charging from 200-2000 Rs., to ´arrange´ a meeting between the tourists/fans and their favorite stars, with Preity and Salman being carrying high premiums, followed by Sunny. The stars were told that "Some fans are waiting outside for many hours" and the stars oblige with autographs and a few words.

When it came to the knowledge of the stars they called it "nothing short of extortion" and put their foot down. When one such arranged tour landed at the set of Salman’s Satish Kaushik directed ´Tere Naam´, the whole unit simply refused to oblige and a scuffle broke out between the fans and the tour/cab operators for the return of the money, and the media had one more crack at Salman after making him slap director Satish Kaushik just a few days back! (A charge laughed off by the director. Incidentally the unit of Tere Naam, Sunny’s Hero and 3 other movies are presently in Manali.

While everyone was thinking that Kaante got delayed because of LA based producer Raju Patel not sending the negatives to India, it has now come to our knowledge that Raju was not the sole reason, apart from Sanjay Gupta, Pritish Nandy and Raju Patel there is a fourth person also who has invested 6-7 cr Rs. in the movie.

This person, who is a shipping tycoon and is a friend of Raju Patel, just did not budge from his stand of not letting the movie release without his investment being returned. The negatives could not be released without his signature and that’s why they reached India quite late. Some sort of an agreement was worked out, whereby the overseas rites were given to Raju Patel and only then were the negatives were dispatched. This said, the latest news on Kaante (they seem to be endless) is that the original distributor for the profitable Delhi-UP territory having got fed up with the chain of events has now left the rites alone and another distributor has been called in for Delhi-UP.

Overseas, whereas the big names like Eros, Sony Entertainment or Yash Raj Films usually take in a film of such magnitude, Kaante has been left to Media Entertainment, the same company that released Road and Kuch Tum Kaho Kuch Hum Kahein.