Season of fresh pairings in Bollywood

Bollywood is busy making new on-screen couples of A-listers who haven’t acted together so far.

Bollywood has a whole bunch of new screen jodis coming up, and experts say they may mean good news for the box office. The coming months will see many never-before lead pairings in films, and most of these involve A-listers. There’s Aamir Khan and Katrina Kaif in Dhoom 3, Vidya Balan and Farhan Aktar in Shaadi Ke Side Effects, Deepika Padukone- Ranveer Singh in Ram Leela, Saif Ali Khan with Sonakshi Sinha in Bullett Raja and Kareena Kapoor and Emraan Hashmi in their untitled next, among others.

Bullet-Raja-is-set-against-the-backdrop-of-Uttar-Pradesh-based-mafia-while-dealing-with-the-underworld

The actors are excited about working with their new co-stars, and industry experts are equally positive. “A fresh pair creates curiosity among audiences, who want to see how the chemistry of a new pair will turn up on screen, more so in case of romantic scripts. Filmmakers need to keep experimenting with newer pairs or it will get very boring,” says trade analyst Amod Mehra.

Filmmaker Pritish Nandy, who is producing Vidya-Farhan starrer Shaadi Ke Side Effects, says, “A fresh pairing is a new experience. It offers a new magic.” Tanuj Garg of Balaji Films, that is behind Kareena-Emraan’s next, explains, “If we don’t create fresh pairings, who will?” Actor Farhan on his part says it’s “great” to work with Vidya, and Katrina says her Dhoom 3 co-star Aamir is extremely supportive. Kareena expresses an equal eagerness to work with serial-kisser Emraan.

Sounds all good, but industry expert Atul Mohan has a word of caution there: “The fresh pairing should be pertinent to the script, otherwise it may fall flat.”

Saif Ali Khan-Sonakshi Sinha
The pair will be seen in film maker Tigmanshu Dhulia’s Bullett Raja. The film revolves around Uttar Pradesh-based mafia. Sinha had said, “I’m very excited to work with Saif. I wanted to work with him for a while.”