For years, Shekhar Suman (63) ruled the late-night airwaves as a pioneer of Indian television satire with Movers & Shakers (1997). Yet, when he consciously stepped away, a vacuum remained. For the veteran, returning after a 14-year hiatus did not feel like a comeback.

Rejecting the word as a “stereotype”, he explains: “Agar main doctor hoon, aur kuch din mareez nahin dekh raha hoon, iska matlab yeh nahin hai ki main doctor nahin hoon. Kuch aise halaat hote hain jiski wajah se ek gap aa jaata hai. (If I am a doctor and I haven’t seen patients for a few days, that doesn’t mean I stop being a doctor. Sometimes circumstances create a gap.) So I never believe in comeback. I was always there and now, I just decided to be in front of the camera.”

The transition back to the studio floor for his new show Shekhar Tonite felt seamless: “The day I faced the camera for the show, mujhe laga main to kal hi chorr ke gaya tha. (I felt like I had left only yesterday.) It didn’t feel like a 14-year-gap.”

He walked away from Movers & Shakers at the height of its success. “I was getting complacent,” he admits. “As an actor, I wanted to explore characters and not do just one thing. I wanted to write poetry, direct a film, travel, do gardening, explore my culinary talent.”

However, persistent public yearning eventually shifted his perspective. “Movers & Shakers kabhi khatam hi nahin hua. (Movers & Shakers never really ended.) So this show is an extension, because Movers & Shakers rules people’s minds and hearts even today.” My son (Adhyayan Suman; actor-director) said, ‘If people love it and want it so much, why don’t you give it to them? It’s your responsibility.’ That became a catalyst.”

To launch the new property on YouTube, Shekhar backed a complete departure from traditional television networks — a landscape he feels has devolved significantly. “TV mein do hi kism ke log hain — moorkh aur maha moorkh (There are only two kinds of people in television — fools and bigger fools), so why listen to them or take diktat from them?”

Shekhar says bluntly, adding, “OTT bhi barbaad ho gaya (OTT has also gone to ruin), and there’s barely any freedom there. To thrive in a creative field, you need absolute freedom, and YouTube offers you that. Yahan, aap apni saltanat ke badshah hain. Here, you are the king of your own kingdom. It feels liberating.”

This philosophy carries over into his treatment of high-profile guests. Utilising lifelong industry relationships, a single phone call is usually enough to book distinguished figures, though Shekhar maintains a strict code of hospitality.

“Aap kisi bhi mehmaan ko apne ghar bulaate hain, toh ek maryaada zaruri hai. When you invite a guest into your home, a certain decorum is necessary. I will never ask them questions to embarrass them. I know where to draw a line.”

On stage, the script remains a fluid canvas for his signature wit: “Since I make the script myself, I manage to improvise it. While talking, a lot of things come to my head, and I paraphrase. So, there’s a lot of spontaneity.”

Navigating the modern digital landscape also meant adapting to Gen Z without artificially catering to them.

“You don’t have to make an effort to cater. Let them understand. This generation is very smart. And things like bhajan clubbing indicate that they are going back to where they belong,” Shekhar observes. The entire production crew behind Shekhar Tonite consists of Gen Z individuals. “They didn’t know anything about Movers & Shakers. But when they did their homework and researched about it, they are all so happy now and are enjoying every bit of the political satire.” Surviving the era of cancel culture and internet trolls requires a thick skin. Shekhar views trolling as an unfortunate byproduct of digital access.

“Thanks to easy access because of Instagram and YouTube, etc people enjoy being trolls and they have a sadistic streak. So resilience is key. The best thing is to not pay attention to fools.”

He remains unfazed by industry jealousy or coordinated campaigns: “Whenever someone excels, there will be a group of people who will try to pull you down, especially if you are talented. When you do good work, the mediocrity around you gets exposed. And those people try to pull you down. But that doesn’t bother me.”

Shekhar attributes the reality of this revival to his son’s execution: “If Adhyayan wasn’t there, I wouldn’t have done it. I’m grateful to him, because he is the boss now. He has taken over everything, including my Instagram (laughs). But I’m fine with it. Waqt ke sath chalna bahut zaruri hai. It is very important to move with the times.”

As the driving force behind the camera, Adhyayan (38) spent years watching his father’s legacy sit on the shelf. “As a creator and an artiste myself, I realised I needed to step up and bring the show back to make sure this man took his throne. He was an undisputed pioneer of the format,” he says.

The road to bringing Shekhar Tonite to life was paved with closed doors, including four years spent chasing traditional TV executives.

“The last phone call of a studio head said, ‘Huge SS (Shekhar Suman) fan, bro. I grew up watching him’. But the undertone was that he wasn’t sure if Shekhar ji was relevant anymore,” Adhyayan recalls.

Bypassing television entirely, he self-funded the show with zero advertisers: “I thought of YouTube because I was tired of knocking on doors. It gets frustrating as a creator to just keep begging.”

On set, their dynamic shifts into a space of intense professional focus. “I’m the only person who can go to dad and tell him: ‘I don’t like this, or let’s cut this take out and do another one’. When we work together, it’s serious business,” Adhyayan notes. It is a collaboration that Shekhar fully embraces: “Adhyayan is my biggest strength. This is the most fruitful and beautiful collaboration that I’ve ever had in my life. I love the fact that he’s calling the shots on the sets. And as an actor, I surrender. I can’t be like, ‘Tum humein bataoge humein kaise dekhna hai?’ You’re going to tell me how I should look? (laughs) I just follow his instructions and things are so smooth working with him.” Having never had an industry Godfather, Adhyayan dismisses mainstream nepotism debates as irrelevant to his reality.

“I find the conversation about nepotism irrelevant, because I had to build everything on my own from scratch. It took me 17 years to find the door to start the journey.”

Talking about the projects in the pipeline, Adhyayan shares: “I plan to make Dekh Bhai Dekh next and I am already in talks with [director] Anand Mahendroo ji for the same. There’s also a reality show I am working on. As an actor, I have two releases this year. I’m also debuting as a director this year with a film called Main Na Raha Mera. I have four music albums releasing this year and I also have a clothing brand called Dutchess Kumari, which is eight months old. I am building my own world.”

GADAR - EK PREM KATHA and LAGAAN released twenty years back and below are the opening day collections from some centres. Obviously they do not compare much with the collections seen today but both films opened to more or less full occupancy depending on the centre and could not do much more.

LAGAAN did manage to compete in Mumbai city and even lead in Pune city and South but it was GADAR all the way in the rest of India. The gaps were huge in the Hindi circuits and this was despite the fact that in some places, GADAR played in the weaker cinema. But that did not matter as the audience was not coming for the cinema but for the film.

Both films had a rural setting though that setting was presented more for the classes in LAGAAN. Today the industry has a huge problem as it is unable to make big films with a rural setting and tend to go the Hollywood way for action depending on high scale action and money shots. History says the bigger HITS are always likely to have a rural setting.

The collections of GADAR - EK PREM KATHA and LAGAAN on day one at some centres are below. The number of cinemas is in brackets.

Gadar - 18,51,000 (26)

Lagaan - 16,13,000 (21)

Gadar - 4,50,000 (8)

Lagaan - 3,95,000 (5)

Gadar - 16,25,000 (16)

Lagaan - 14,00,000 (16)

Gadar - 1,32,000 (2)

Lagaan - 75,000 (3)

Gadar - 71,000 (1)

Lagaan - 58,000 (1)

Gadar - 80,000 (1)

Lagaan - 64,000 (1)

Gadar - 1,02,000 (1)

Lagaan - 65,000 (1)

Gadar - 1,88,000 (4)

Lagaan - 1,32,000 (4)

Gadar - 2,50,000 (3)

Lagaan - 1,45,000 (3)

Gadar - 4,50,000 (10)

Lagaan - 5.80,000 (13)

Few filmmakers inspire the kind of devotion among Indian audiences that Christopher Nolan does. These are the fans who turn up unfailingly for every Nolan retrospective, pack theatres from the earliest morning shows to late-night screenings, and can transform a decade-old film like Interstellar into one of the country's most talked-about cinematic events, as they did last year. And Nolan is well aware of that affection.

The relationship has long felt re-ciprocal. Over the years, Nolan has repeatedly acknowledged the passion his films inspire in India - from recording a special message for audiences ahead of Tenet's release to giving Indian moviegoers early access to IMAX bookings for The Odyssey. During the initial rollout, India was the only market outside the US to receive that privilege.

This July, Nolan is set to visit Mumbai to meet his fans. Studio sources confirmed that the filmmaker will visit India next month, ahead of the release of The Odyssey as part of the film's global tour. Given his immense popularity in India, Mumbai has been included as a key stop on the international tour, with Nolan set to meet fans and attend the film's premiere in the city.

The schedule, however, is yet to be finalized. Sources say the action-fantasy film will be the first Nolan film to premiere in India.

He will be accompanied by cast members Matt Damon and Tom Holland Holland, along with Academy Award-winning producer Emma Thomas.

"The film's Mumbai premiere marks one of the most significant Hollywood visits ever staged in India," sources from the studio share.

Mumbai: The Mumbai crime branch has issued a lookout notice against suspended Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) assistant municipal commissioner Mahesh Patil, an accused in the Rs 16.24 crore cheating case lodged by actor Jaaved Jaaferi’s family.

Crime branch officials issued the lookout notice earlier this month amid concerns that Patil might leave the country.

The crime branch’s property cell had earlier arrested UK-based businessman Nishit Patel for allegedly cheating actor Jaaved Jaaferi, his wife Habiba Jaffrey and their relatives of Rs 16.24 crore on the promise of lucrative returns through investments linked to the redevelopment of the New Kamalkunj project in Bandra West.

Javid Jaffery’s wife first met Patil at his BMC office in April 2024 for some clarification regarding a tax-related matter. Patil allegedly told her about an investment opportunity in a Bandra property project and advised her to channel it through Patel.

Police alleged that Nishit Patel frequently visited the Jaffrey residence, presented project layouts and maps, and persuaded the family to invest nearly Rs 30 crore in exchange for commercial space in the proposed redevelopment project.

He allegedly furnished forged letters purportedly issued by a private bank and other fabricated project-related documents to convince the family to invest.

Crime branch officials alleged that forged documents and false assurances were used to collect nearly Rs 16 crore from Jaaved Jaaferi, his relatives and other investors.

Police sources said that several influential individuals, including retired police officers, civic officials, artists and retired judges had allegedly invested amounts ranging from Rs 50 lakh to Rs 20 crore in the project after being promised substantial returns.

The alleged fraud came to light in July 2025, when the complainants visited the Bandra registration office and discovered that one of the agreements shown to them did not exist in the official records. The accused later assured investors that the money would be returned, but it never happened.

The global success of the Hollywood horror film Obsession, which has reportedly earned 330 times its budget, has become a case study in world cinema. However, it has sparked mixed reactions within the Hindi film industry.

Filmmaker Anurag Kashyap recently expressed concern on his Instagram Stories that theatre chains are prioritizing Obsession over Hindi releases, including his film Bandar (released on June 5) and recent Friday releases such as Main Vaapas Aaunga, Governor, and others.

Trade analyst Komal Nahta, however, believes international films aren’t an impediment. He shares, “Only bad content is coming in the industry. Bandar is not doing well even otherwise, so the number of shows isn’t going to make a difference,” adding, “If in two shows, they can’t get houseful, what will they get in 20 shows?”

Trade analyst Atul Mohan adds that multiplex programming is largely driven by audience response. He says, “In a way, Anurag is right. Business is ruthless. If a film doesn’t do well in the first two days, they reduce the shows drastically, which doesn’t give time for word of mouth to spread. Hindi films deserve that time to grow.”

Film exhibitor Akshaye Rathi echoes the sentiment and says that the audience makes the ultimate decision. “If Main Vaapas Aaunga or any other film have very good occupancy levels, cinemas across the country would increase the number of shows, like they did for Haunted – Echoes Of The Past in the same week. So, it’s not about the theatres but what the audience decides,” he shares.

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- KOMAL NAHTA, TRADE ANALYST

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For Indian films to not get enough attention from theatres, despite having good reviews, does not go down well with Anurag.

He tells us, “Films like Bandar and Main Vaapas Aaunga should get proper shows so that people can watch them, allowing word of mouth to build up. Then another problem is that there’s an audience that is getting used to seeing such films on OTT. So you’re building an audience only for event movies. But such films are so expensive, and the hit-and-miss ratio is huge. For every Dhurandhar, there will be five expensive films that will bomb.”

He emphasizes strategic show timings for smaller films too. He adds, “Bandar’s night shows were full. But who’s going to go watch Bandar at 9 am, when it is going to upset you for the rest of the day? There’s human psychology also involved.”

Dishani Chakraborty, daughter of veteran actor-politician Mithun Chakraborty, announced her engagement to freelance cinematographer Myles Mantzaris in California on Monday, sharing a series of photographs from the proposal on Instagram.

Dishani is the adopted daughter of Mithun Chakraborty and his wife, actor Yogeeta Bali. She grew up in the Chakraborty household alongside their sons, actors Mimoh and Namashi, and filmmaker Ushmey Chakraborty.

The news has left the family overjoyed, with Mimoh saying the family, and especially his dad, is “super happy”. He adds, “We are still soaking in the good news.”

Dishani, who studied at the New York Film Academy in Los Angeles and the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute, has reportedly acted in and produced several short films including Gift (2017) and The Guest (2022). Miles works in the entertainment industry as a freelance cinematographer, steadicam operator, Director of Photography (DP), and colourist. The wedding is tentatively being planned around December 6.

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The entire family, especially my dad, is super happy. We siblings connected on a quick call, and hearing her excited made me feel so content as an older brother. As we talked, I couldn’t help but get teary-eyed. It’s an overwhelming moment.

- Mimoh Chakraborty, Actor

The controversy surrounding Kala Hiran, a film reportedly inspired by the 1998 blackbuck poaching case linked to actor Salman Khan, has taken a new turn. Producer Amit Jani has now issued a legal notice to actor Govind Namdev after the latter publicly distanced himself from the project.

Announcing the move on X on Monday, Amit said in Hindi that a legal notice had been served to Govind, demanding a public apology within seven days and Rs. 50 lakh for damages allegedly caused to the production house’s reputation.

The development comes days after Govind, who shared screen space with Salman in Wanted (2009), expressed his disapproval of the film. “We were never told that a character resembling Salman would be created and portrayed in this manner. There is a world of difference between what I was told and what has been made,” he had told Amar Ujala. On being contacted, Govind said he is not in a frame of mind to talk at the moment.

While Salman’s name is not explicitly mentioned in Kala Hiran, the teaser features a character named Ayaan Khan, whom many viewers believe bears a resemblance to the actor.

Meanwhile, Salman moved the Delhi High Court On June 12 seeking a stay on the film’s release. In the plea, the actor argued that Kala Hiran appears to be based on allegations associated with him and violates an earlier court order protecting his personality rights.

Director Robbie Grewal is enjoying the acclaim coming his way for Made In India: The Titan Story. However bringing the series to screens was anything but straightforward. The show, starring Naseeruddin Shah and Jim Sarbh, struggled to find a streaming home despite its compelling subject, moving between platforms before eventually landing at Amazon MX Player.

Looking back, Grewal says the project survived because everyone involved believed in it. “Getting a series made is always a challenge. We had conviction in our show, and there were a lot of people who shared that belief. Whether it was producers or the team at the OTT platform, they all backed it wholeheartedly. When the conviction is holistically so strong, chances of going wrong are much less. The biggest risk today for a maker is not to tell a story honestly. Even if you do an algorithm-based show, be honest to it. Whichever lens you look at a story from, that’s the key for a show to work.”

Grewal also believes streaming platforms have become increasingly reliant on proven formulas, particularly in the crime genre. “When Sacred Games came, it was fantastic. What’s happening now is that people are following a similar template because it has worked before. That’s actually the death of a story. You create art not by imitation, but by imagination.”

One of the biggest milestone for the director was directing Shah, a long-held ambition. “For any filmmaker, he would be among the actors you dream of working with. It’s a dream for me too. Naseer saab keeps you on your toes. He’s so good at his craft that if you’re not at your best, you’ll be in trouble.”

The show’s creators were granted unprecedented permission to film inside the inner sanctums of Tata, including the historic Bombay House, and the Titan factory in Hosur

Before filming the series, Robbie Grewal spent time with members of the Titan employees to better understand the people behind the company. He shared, “What the characters play on screen is an embodiment of what they are in real life. They’re happy. And to be happy in today’s times is not easy, but they’re genuinely happy. That’s the spirit we tried to put across in our telling.”

Inspired by real-life incidents from Porbandar, director Krrupesh Vayeda’s Hindi feature film Tapas throws light on a lesser-explored side of Gujarat’s underworld. Set in 2017, the crime drama stars Freddy Daruwala as a special officer navigating the challenges of taking on an entrenched criminal network.

Speaking about the film, Vayeda says that authenticity was central to the project. “The narrative is engaging, realistic, and emotionally connected as it delves into a world where crime and political connections thrive. While the story is fictional, it is inspired by the realities of contemporary Gujarat and reflects the efforts of law enforcement agencies to keep crime under control across the state.”

For Freddy, who was last seen in Dharavi Bank, the role marks a departure from the larger-than-life cop archetype.

“Karansinh isn’t a superhero. He makes mistakes, faces setbacks, and evolves through the story. Tapas is close to my heart because it is set in Gujarat, my home state. I finally got the opportunity to play a realistic police officer — a role I always wanted to portray.”